


The Reason Why

by lenasorensen



Series: youngpilwoon love triangles [2]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, angsty in so many ways, highschool and college, i think i gave away the answer already, it’s a dopil, mostly gag-me-with-a-spoon fluff, passing of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-01 06:26:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenasorensen/pseuds/lenasorensen
Summary: dowoon tries to find the reason why wonpil left. he finds himself tracing back to where it all started.or snapshots of dowoon's life spent with wonpil until the day when everything suddenly ended.





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> i knew much too late that it's dopil week, so i came utterly unprepared. this is something i've been working on but haven't been able to finish. i wanted to post something for dopil week though, so this is the first part. there is going to be a second part! 
> 
> it's a barely revised block of word-vomitting, especially towards the end where i started getting too excited at the thought of posting it. 
> 
> warning: some mild sexual content
> 
> i do not own day6
> 
> i hope it's not shitty, that's all ;-;

the first time dowoon meets him, he regrets to say that he was far from sober.

it’s during some party that dowoon doesn’t remember making the conscious decision to attend, because he has already been half intoxicated by other illicit substances. it’s not his friends that dowoon shakes hands with as he takes another round of shots, it’s not his friends that dowoon bumps into and unwittingly forgets to apologize, it’s not his friends that dowoon’s paying these cheap beers from the convenience store for. he’s ‘that rich kid’ that everybody invites to their unsupervised house parties by default, not exactly exploiting him for his wealth, but dowoon is convinced, even when buried deep beneath layers of alcohol and drugs of which the names have eluded him, that it goes along those lines. he doesn’t mind, never does, because it’s not his money. it’s only one portion of the swollen load in his parents’ bank account. he doesn’t do it often anyways, and since his parents are always too busy to bother double checking the amount of money left, he concludes that there’s no harm in stealing a quantity that wouldn’t amount to any difference in their eyes. 

but dowoon’s gotten sick of the repetitive song the host seems to love so much (havana ooh na na, as it goes in his head for the past hour), so he stumbles outside with much difficulty in this somber stillness in comparison to the boisterous life vividly swelling inside the house. it clouds his ears, it makes the ground spin a little faster, makes dowoon’s eyes a little droopier. 

there’s a figure sitting on the sidewalk, hunched down in a position dowoon hopes isn’t to make throwing up easier. thankfully, he doesn’t hear any sounds he should be suspicious of. 

he flops down to sit beside the person, leaning against the electric pole that has suddenly found itself beside him, his body gradually slipping. 

“why aren’t you with the others?” he asks for no reason at all.

“don’t want to.” the other replies, and dowoon figures it’s a man because his voice is deeper than his slightly feminine face makes it seem. dowoon has always been kind of arbitrary. 

“why not?”

“do i need a reason?” the guy says sharply, but with a comely smile nonetheless. 

“well, yeah…” dowoon sighs, forcing his eyes to open under the weight of his drowsiness. he yawns. “i guess not, then.” 

he looks closely, squints through the bleariness, and breathes hard. the guy is really handsome, or it may be the blurry lines of his eyes that entrances dowoon. he can’t decipher much in this lightning, but the flickers of colorful lights coming from behind them pouring onto the guy’s hunched back compliments his complexion in a very whimsical way. he blatantly lets his eyes roam as the guy speaks about some philosophical stuff he can’t even begin to understand, not bothering to bestow even a quarter of his normally radical politeness. dowoon suddenly wonders what his name is, but the question never makes it past his lips.

—

the handsome guy says later, when they got tired of uselessly dawdling about on the sidewalk and decided on a whim to lie down on the cold concrete of the street, that he got into a fight with his best friend—a guy by the name of younghyun. it’s someone dowoon doesn’t know, the taste of the name on his lips foreign and inflexible, a word his mouth is unfamiliar to forming. he can’t even begin to associate it to a potential face. 

he doesn’t want to get ahead of the curve, but this younghyun guy seemed to have driven Bright Smile to the end of his wits. he reads it between the strings of complaints in a very colorful language coming from the guy’s mouth. 

but dowoon makes a mental note to thank him, though. otherwise, he never would’ve stumbled upon such an opportunistic encounter. 

\--

some days later, he’s surprised that he can even remember what Bright Smile looks like. he’s even more surprised that he immediately spots him in the corridors of his school among a cluster of similar mops of black hair, making his way out. dowoon scurries after the isolated figure retreating from school until all of his breath escapes from his lungs. 

“hey.” he says, out of breath, as he tries to perfectly match his footsteps with the other.

“hey!” 

“can i walk with you?”

“yeah, you can.”

\--

the next time he sees him, the guy (he learned that his name is wonpil) is perched on the bleachers with his books spread open in his lap, cheering for his friends below kicking into a ball. dowoon passively watches the ongoing football game as he takes lazy steps towards wonpil. 

he sits down next to him and successfully catches his attention, draws a widely stretched smile on his face at which dowoon mirrors with a flutter in his chest.

wonpil explains later that he usually plays ball with his friends even though he completely sucks at sports, but he has too much homework on his hand to participate. dowoon nods to show his honest interest to every word he was saying, prompting him to speak more. throughout their conversation that shouldn’t have been more than basic, he discovers that wonpil is a year older than him, therefore a year closer to graduation. 

“you wanna come watch me practice?” dowoon asks eventually, after staying mute for too long. 

“what do you play?”

“drums.” 

“alright. i like music.” wonpil says with a smile, gathering his textbooks and pens to graciously slip them into his bag with elegant ease. they leave for dowoon’s vast basement where he has turned the place into his personal instrumental sanctum. wonpil lets out sounds of amazement, different variations of ‘wows’ and ‘wahs’. the luxurious setting is something dowoon is used to (and generally sick of) seeing, so he tries to relate to wonpil’s first time in such ambience. 

he likes it, though, this whole company thing.

wonpil stays until the sun sets.

\--

dowoon sees wonpil talking, laughing, bumping shoulders with his friends, and then he looks at his own. his lunch table is not vacant, a few seats occupied by people he only superficially knows. when his gaze flickers back to rest on wonpil’s thousand megawatts smile, he finds it reasonable that he really, really wants to be his friend.

\--

on a sunny day, rare in such deviation of weather, they meet halfway on a bridge, somehow. actually, dowoon has planned and calculated the exact number of steps he’d have to take so they’d meet at the exact middle of the bridge, where the view gave way to a beautiful and perfect scene of the river. it could have been romantic in other circumstances, and he tucks the idea in mind for future occasions. 

wonpil wears a neatly pressed black shirt with short sleeves, a pair of dark, ripped jeans perfectly outlining his slender legs and a bright smile flourishing to life upon noticing dowoon; it lights up his chest because wonpil didn’t forget about him just yet.

they fall in an airy conversation about this and that, things of everyday and remindful of yesteryear, arms folded and perched on the railings of the bridge. 

“hey, can i be your friend?” the question sounds stranger aloud than it did when he replayed it in his head for the past few days. 

“aren’t you already?” he hears wonpil’s reply, his eyes casted on the ripples of the river below their feet. 

“maybe.”

“maybe?” it comes out laced around a featherly chuckle. 

“i guess i am.”

wonpil pats his back and attracts dowoon’s gaze on his face, on his smile, on his lips.

\--

one of wonpil’s friends (maybe sungjin, the guy wonpil talked about, or maybe it’s younghyun, that _guy_ ) slings his arm over his shoulder and pulls him close, eliciting an inaudible laugh from wonpil at a distance where dowoon can’t really hear. wonpil’s friend leans down to whisper something in his ear and has wonpil throwing his head back, unrolling peels of laughter. 

dowoon purses his lips and turns back to his lunch.

\--

it’s the middle of the night and dowoon is bored out of his wits. he finds himself turning and tossing around in his bed and has yet to reach a state close to slumber. he flings his bare legs over the bed with a damp sigh and slips into his sweatpants, grabs a dollar or two and before he knows it, he’s out the door and headed to the convenience store as remote from his house as possible. the distance would ease him into a fatigued condition, he reasoned (more than he should for such a simple thought). 

the store is absolutely deserted of any customers and he even spots a few of the staffs already preparing to pack up and close, indifferent about dowoon’s sudden intruding. he walks through the aisles to empty his mind from the dormant thoughts preventing him from acquiring the hours of sleep he deserved after a long and tiring week. it takes him some time to decide on a few snacks that he cradles in his arms, unfamiliar with the locations of commodities. 

upon rounding another aisle, he stops dead in his tracks as he identifies none other than wonpil standing in a pensive stance, seemingly too absorbed in his thoughts and a helix of impasse to notice his presence. dowoon scans around and notes the cds lining along the shelves, entering the aisle with his heart thumping heavily in his ears.

“you like alt-J?” wonpil asks him without having to look up, brows scrunched and knotted in the middle. 

“love ‘em.” he answers, shifting his weight to lean on his other leg. wonpil doesn’t look up and nods slowly, visibly weighing the options. “you should buy it.” dowoon incites with a smile that wonpil can’t see.

“you think so? i only know a few of their songs but i really like them.” 

“i train to their beats sometimes. interesting drum patterns.” 

“really?” wonpil hefts his head up and meets dowoon’s awaiting gaze for a startling moment. “i’ll make a note to come and watch you then.” he says, the last part muffled by his index tapping against his lower lip. 

he waits, rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet for wonpil’s final decision. the prospect of returning home and littering his bed with bread crumbs and grains of sugar as his initial plan involved didn’t seem all too appealing anymore. he thought of playing that new game he downloaded on his phone and maybe doze off with a confectionary glazed stomach at ass hour in the morning and maybe put on some music. but after seeing wonpil, he knows how hard it’s going to be to fall back asleep. how hard it’s going to be to even want to sleep. 

“you can come now, if you want.” 

the answer doesn’t come immediately, but dowoon doesn’t hear rejection either, which doesn’t coerce him to move from his spot until he gets one. although his invitation did sound sweetly absurd.

“sure.” wonpil breathes not too long after, lips curled into a dainty smile, bright and stunning.

his snacks end up in wonpil’s stomach, but dowoon can’t find it himself to complain. dowoon periodically peaks over his drum set to catch some of wonpil’s facial expressions that directly translates into wonderment and nimble curiosity, and it spurs him to put up a better performance than what he’s used to. it’s two in the morning, dowoon’s uncaringly hits the drums and cymbals as if the neighbors aren’t trying to sleep, but the veneration on wonpil’s face convinces him that it’s worth all the complaints he’d get when morning comes. 

soon, it’s four in the morning and dowoon is far from wanting to reach that state of slumber he yearned for just hours priorly, instead wishes the unwelcomed sleep would stop pressing down on his lids. they hoist themselves up on the top level of dowoon’s house, leading to an open roof top paired with a beautiful view of the endless ebony night sky stretching above their heads. the old stereo croaks out the cheap alt-j disc, the impromptu element on wonpil’s wish-list. 

and honestly, dowoon couldn’t think of a better way to fall asleep, even if he had to wake up with a sore back and a mild sunburn (he slept through the entire morning) and an empty spot beside him. 

wonpil forgot the disc though, but that would serve for an excuse for wonpil to come back. or maybe, he was already intent on coming back.

\--

dowoon tries gel, rock solid and distinct in smell lathered between his locks, steals his dad’s cologne, imitates younghyun (wonpil has explained to him that younghyun often likes to engage in physical contact because the guy virtually lives off of it, and wonpil is the only one entrusting his generosity on the issue. he doesn’t exactly know what to do of this information), leans on walls, invest in new clothes and overall reconditions his wardrobe for things more fitting in the current fashion curve. it’s a lot of work, but dowoon sheds his skin into a newer and better version of himself, someone he appreciates better, at least as far as physical appearances go. 

he’s still the shy and distant kid he’s grown up to be, but he can work on that later.

\--

dowoon usually pays attention in class, always does his homework without fault and hands them in time. there’s a guilty part of himself that admits never doing more than what was asked, and never caters his curiosity for academic purposes, but at least he behaves appropriately to guide his grades to correctitude. 

so it’s understandable how much of a shock it was for him to repeatedly scrutinize his scandalous grade upon receiving his test. he stares at the F on his math test, in thick lines and in bold red as to needlessly emphasize the level of his idiocy. he pulls his lips into a tight smile as a smaller but distinctive ‘you will be put under tutelage’ is written on the top corner of his paper, concise yet reprimanding. a frail blow to his pride. 

he tries not to think about it too much when he finds himself before none other than kang younghyun as his tutor, outlining a math passage dowoon has already whipped himself into memorizing and that has him losing an unhealthy amount of sleep, and it successfully pulls at his strings. anyone could tell younghyun looks like he’s trying to teach math to an idiot. but it’s ultimately not his fault and dowoon understands that younghyun most probably doesn’t feel any obligation or the will to even do this, so he recoils and at least falls under the pretense that he’s interested. younghyun showing up is already proof enough of his kindly inclination that can’t be overlooked. so little people like this exist in the world.

when he walks out of the classroom after a succinct nod of goodbye to younghyun, the sun is already setting behind the tall skyscrapers in the distance. he thinks about drum practice, his hands already itching to fold around his favorite pair of drumsticks and footsteps moving in tandem of a beat swerving in his head. he also thinks of texting wonpil and maybe inviting him over to hang out, even if for a little while.

he doesn’t expect to see the object of his thoughts through an opened door mopping the floor of the classroom, and anything that has been in dowoon promptly turns into mirth and restlessness. 

“hey. wonpil hyung.” 

“oh, hi dowoon.” wonpil looks up, resting the mop stick against the wall nearby. the orange rays of the sun filtering through the windows is a beautiful color on wonpil’s skin. 

“it’s late.”

“yeah, what are you doing here?”

“extra class. what about you?”

“detention.”

“oh.”

“before you say anything, jae framed this whole thing. i have nothing to do with this.”

“ah.” at loss of what to say, he decides to behave like he knew which friend wonpil was referring to. there are so many to choose from. “wanna come watch me practice later?”

“sure. let me finish up.”

“alright hyung.”

there’s something about wonpil that makes it harder and harder for him to breathe through his nose. 

\--

they end up taking the subway home, elbows brushing and gazes meeting. wonpil speaks a lot, he figures, and dowoon always finds the ample gaps wonpil leaves between his speech to reiterate something. (he adds in an extra point when it manages to curl wonpil’s lips into a beautiful smile.) 

they came up with the old-fashioned game, seeking dry entertainment in associating made-up lives to the people they see. but there’s hardly anyone boarding the same vehicle as them, save for an old man sitting a few rows ahead and a tired-looking business lady balancing a little child on her hip. it defeats the whole purpose of their game, but honestly, as long as it keeps their conversation standing on a solid enough ground, dowoon can’t find it himself to complain. 

there’s something musky and sweet in wonpil’s scent that carries out into his mind, something in the way the folds around his eyes and encompassing his mouth form a soft crinkle whenever he laughs, registers his tantalizing voice. 

he listens closely, the subtle way wonpil’s voice is somewhat authoritative to him, a bit patronizing on the edges but nothing too condescending. he watches closely, wonpil’s grand movements, so broad and elaborate in comparison to his shy ministrations. dowoon blinks once, twice, and realizes before he completely understands it that wonpil is special enough to trigger his interest. at this point, it can’t really be hidden.

“wanna sleep over?” he asks, tempting, wanting.

“got class tomorrow, yeah? don’t think i can.” 

“shame.” he shouldn’t have pushed his luck.

“maybe another day.” 

“maybe.”

—

on his rooftop, the wind is slightly cold, caressing their half-closed lids. 

“hey dowoon,” wonpil starts, mere minutes before he would stand up and leave. 

“hm?”

“why don’t you find yourself a band and perform?”

“but why?” he asks quizzically.

“because you’re good at drums.” 

the alt-J song softly playing in the background is just a mere buzzing noise in their (flushed, in dowoon’s case) ears, but dowoon doesn’t keep himself from uttering an even smaller go again?

“i said it’s because you’re good at drums.” wonpil says, a smile, a poorly attempted wink, a breezy chuckle. all the reasons contributing to the fastening of dowoon’s chest.

he remains silent though, doesn’t bother expressing his gratitude because he’s convinced it was thinly veiled on his face anyways. he watches the meager twinkle of the lonesome star perched above them, ignores the heat inflicted by the frail gap between their shoulders that he suddenly feels with a sharper sense of perception. 

“perform?” he speaks to the void stretching in front of him, adjusting his head on his forearms. 

“yeah.” it is wonpil who gives him the answer.

“will you be there to watch me?”

“definitely.”

“then okay.”

—

 _it’s mild curiosity,_ he tells himself as he observes, almost scrutinizes, wonpil strapping himself to younghyun’s side, younghyun’s fingers curving to gently flick his forehead, dowoon’s heart beating a little harder. he chews on his inner cheek and forgets to swallow his food; promptly looks away; does his best to immerse himself in the conversation his friend has struck in his moment of daze.

—

the next time dowoon sees him, he’s in the classroom, obviously enjoying a conversation shared between his friends. he’s sitting in front of the giant with glasses, chest leaned up against the back of his chair. from where dowoon is dawdling about the threshold to wonpil’s classroom, observing wonpil through the open door, he recognizes sungjin and younghyun on either side of who he assumes is jae (wonpil has mentioned him more than a few times in the passing, but dowoon never could associate him to a familiar face). 

he’s drawn to wonpil with the same enthusiasm a fly has for a source of light, like a pull of gravity. he doesn’t want to simply watch from a distance and let things be like he usually did, and he can’t deny that that precise disposition has always left him to be hardly fruitful in romance. but up to this point, dowoon has never really given any interest in this kind of thing, has never really given it any fully-fledged thoughts. he can’t afford to let things slowly wither and die just because his lack of social skills doesn’t permit him to gather some courage and confront the urgency of his situation (urgent because god knows just about anyone except dowoon can whisk wonpil away in a blink of an eye). there are many windows available to take the leap, to try and test his chance. he’s not in love, he knows that much, but the familiarity of the path previously paved by old, meaningless crushes told him enough about the direction in which he was venturing. 

he can sense that wonpil is like no other. he’s always known by some sourceless prudence that he’s most likely into both genders. so far, wonpil is the first boy who has managed to catch his banal curiosity and entice this urge to know more, this need to make a move. normally, dowoon would have never bothered for people he felt like they won’t reciprocate his feelings. it’s just useless in the end, so what’s the point? but he’s willing to try for wonpil, throw away his burdensome shyness and awkwardness out the window even for a few moments. who knows? as long as the results come out consequential, dowoon considers it worth a shot. 

he’s a little hesitant, tries to reach for the door to slide it open a little more, maybe just enough to catch wonpil’s attention (which would mean his entire group of friend but he remembers that it’s worth it), but even through this small opening, wonpil catches his adventurous gaze anyways; it’s just enough time to launch his heart into his throat and force his feet to evade the area as quick as possible. 

he only makes it so far before wonpil’s voice is calling out to him, pulling his weight back with only a tilt in his tone. he has a few seconds to think of running as far away as possible, maybe dig himself a hole and die, before wonpil’s hand comes to meticulously grasp his shoulder. he turns, alarmed, and fires his stare at wonpil. 

“dowoon-ah, let’s go to the playground!” he has his backpack slung over his shoulder, packed a small smile rounding the corners of his lips, bottomless eyes warm and welcoming. 

“together?” he asks. 

“yeah.”

 _what about your friends?_ he doubts, but doesn’t want to waste such chance. 

they end up walking, shared earphones blasting alt-J music plucked into their ears, ephemeral brushes of hands that are so featherlight it might have only been a figment of dowoon’s imagination. it’s silent most of the walk there, but his heart is as loud as wonpil can be. upon arriving, wonpil immediately perches himself upside down from a horizontal pole, claiming it to be a habit of his since his childhood. 

dowoon idly stands by and watches, as passive as ever. 

he wants to touch him. to hold him. to _do_ something significant. 

and he decides that this timidity that he can roughly cope with has to go to hell.

“hyung be careful.” he takes a step forward, rests his shaky hands on wonpil’s waist and fights against the impulse of wandering them around. “you’ll fall.” he almost whispers, looking straight into wonpil’s upside down eyes. their gazes lock for a couple of breathless seconds before dowoon’s face breaks into an uncontrollable grin, leans his forehead against wonpil’s smooth stomach. he sees the delicate details of his face from this angle, the curved lashes, the flimsy dimple carved into his cheeks, and he can only offer a weak smile in return. he feels like he’s letting wonpil down, letting down his radiance and comity for being the one at the receiving end. he’s so dull and arid; all these gifts probably make waste for being projected at dowoon.

“you smell so good, dowoon-ah”

and just like that, his thoughts came down crashing on the floor.

“do i?”

“like an expensive brand of perfume.” wonpil says, dowoon purses his lips, nips on the inside of them, licks his teeth.

“get down from there hyung, you’ll hurt yourself.” when he suggests that, wonpil drops down expertly on his feet, dusts himself off, and beams brightly.

“i wanna watch you practice.” 

\--

his friends’ bickering is obnoxiously loud, even snuggled between louder voices in such environment as their school canteen. dowoon ignores it, chews silently on his food as he tries to focus on the music playing in his ears, watches wonpil eat and younghyun clasp an innocuous hand around his waist. dowoon gathers his plate and gets up to leave.

\--

“hyung.”

“hm?”

“i found a band to perform with.” he tries not to smile. “they accepted me right away.” dowoon adds, to buffer his growing confidence even by a mere breath. 

“that’s great dowoonie! when’s the concert?”

“at the end of the school year. june.” 

“hm. i’m looking forward to it.”

“hyung?”

“yes?”

“will you come?”

“yes, of course.”

“good.” 

—

saturdays are slow, drab and usually spent loitering around in front of his pc, playing rounds upon rounds of games; losing and losing and then winning some and back to losing again. the counterproductive drill that ends up draining the limitless time of saturdays like an hourglass. or more like observing every grain of sand fall from the top container to the bottom one. annoyingly slow, ultimately pointless.

and as a matter of custom, dowoon always finds himself in the lifeless basement behind his equally uninteresting drum set, sitting about doing nothing but hit hit hit. sure, he’s made it himself, this wholesome haven that should have warded off all the varieties of malevolence in life. sure, it has kept dowoon from desperate calls for reliability that people dub ‘social bonding’ these days. sure, its soundproof walls specially built to absorb the percussions of his drums helped to obstruct the sound of the ringing phone from reaching him; perfunctory conversations with his parents, friends’ invitations to nameless locations, pointless advertisements chastised to phone rich homes like his, dowoon was free of them all. 

the one thing it could never fend off, though, is loneliness. 

saturdays are dreadful. he’d rather spend his time sleeping in class than sleeping at home. at least, yugyeom throwing chewed balls of paper into jimin’s hair was considerably more entertaining than staring at that permanent crack in his white ceiling. perhaps the adding up of such gloomy saturdays contributed to his poor social skills. he doesn’t want people to think that his unfriendly nature is a choice. because it’s not. 

and so, would it be strange if he admitted never running this fast in his life just to answer a phone call? it’s not just any phone calls, too. he knows it’s wonpil, because he’s set a personal ringtone for his hyung. 

would it be strange for him to admit never stepping out of his house this fast in his life when wonpil has laid out his invitation to the arcade? probably. 

but does dowoon really care? probably not.

is he eager? certainly, but that’s okay, because wonpil too, seems as enchanted to see him, if his broad grin and restless fingers are any indication. he even pulled dowoon into a bear hug and thus has successfully breached the barrier of skinship. (finally!)

he’s always found the air of the arcade somewhat romantic. it doesn’t make much sense, but the colorful lights infiltrating the dim backdrop, the vivid animation of the floodlights playing on wonpil’s skin, filtering his hair, his glistening teeth, lips, eyes with a disarray of saturation, it just gives a touch of romantic aura to the air—a sort of virtual reality encompassing them in a parallel universe, maybe one where dowoon can be wonpil’s superhero or where wonpil can beat the shit out of an enemy who has harmed dowoon. something cheesy like that. 

it’s between rounds of games that wonpil suddenly tells him “you look nice in a hoodie” and proceeds to measure him up with a quality of flirtatious suaveness gracing his face. they’re standing in line to get more tokens, something dowoon can finally call a brief pause from intense button-pressing. wonpil isn’t competitive, but is tireless as far as arcade booths are concerned. 

dowoon keeps beating him time and again, hasn’t lost since their arrival, but wonpil’s complexion soaked with many fluorescent lights beats the breath out of his lungs. 

“you…” he says, at a loss. “...always look nice hyung.” 

“really now?” wonpil quirks a brow at him, unimpressed. he bumps shoulders with dowoon, laughs when dowoon bends his neck to obscure the obvious flush of his ears, of his cheeks. 

saturdays don’t have to be slow, or tedious. saturdays don’t have to be lonely. he’d trade hours of his saturdays—those lifelong hours dragging until what feels like a lifetime—if it meant that he could keep wonpil between the walls of time, to furnish the rifts between those lonely days. 

—

when dowoon arrives, the sky has already turned a crisp black with no stars to be found. he never comes early to house parties since he sees no real use of passing out so soon in the night, favors the idea of moderately drinking until morning ticks by. he’d be wasted by then, anyways. 

as usual, the host has beckoned him over to the party without much effort; not because dowoon actually wants to drink or dance or whatever, but because of a whispered promise of wonpil’s presence. he wants to see him, again, wants to touch him, again. which gives him another reason for his defunct punctuality: he couldn’t afford to see wonpil too soon or too often, has to play his cards correctly so wonpil doesn’t think of him as a metaphorical stick of glue. 

he doesn’t spot wonpil right away amidst the clutter of sweaty high school students, so he settles with quietly sitting in a darker corner with a complete view of the house (jae’s house if he remembers correctly). he nurses a can of beer, and soon, one turns into five. he keeps up until he reaches the edge of drunkenness, stops right before he’s given an opportunity to pass out in a flood of vomit. it’s only then that he identifies the one person he was looking for, serving shots of tequila for his friends. 

dowoon waits, maybe half an hour that felt like only a few minutes, but then, wonpil is suddenly stomping and pushing everyone in his way to the door. dowoon might have heard a 'congratulations, you’re really an a-class asshole, younghyun' as he breezes by the kitchen to exit the house, unashamedly following wonpil. 

“hey hyung.” dowoon says to wonpil sitting on the sidewalk, both of them in the exact same disposition as the first time they’d met. dowoon would always remember. 

“oh, hey dowoon-ah.” wonpil responds, slightly less defeated. maybe the simple being of dowoon did that, but he can never be sure, especially in such conditions.

“why aren’t you with the others?” 

a sigh, a subtle shake of the head, gaze casted on the concrete pavement. wonpil makes it clear that he doesn’t want to breathe a word about it. it doesn’t bother dowoon, so he decides to place his head on wonpil’s shoulder because he knows he can. the alcohol is too heavy in their systems to make much of a gesture that would be considered none too intimate when sober and not so misguided by stimulating substances. 

“thought you’d never come.” wonpil tells him.

“of course i’d come.”

“why’d you come?”

courageously, dowoon answers, “to see you.” 

they do nothing but walk around the block. the air is only mildly breezy but light, a little cold. dowoon doesn’t know how or when it happens but he finds his fingers snuggled between the gaps of wonpil’s own, listens closely to the way he talks, the way his head tips slightly to the side when he thinks, the way his fingers tighten around dowoon’s when he’s surprised. he stares, blatantly, but he can always blame it on the alcohol later. 

in the midst of their aimless strolling, they’d realized far too late that their wandering lead them right before the subway station and nowhere near jae’s house. it’s a wonder, how they even had the lucid conscious to still stand perfectly vertical on slobbering feet. 

“let’s go to your house.” wonpil says. dowoon nods. nobody’s home.

“okay.”

there’s not much to be seen at midnight, and as expected, the vehicle is clear of any boarders. it’s only those back from or going to their late night shifts, but that’s not relevant as to why they’re fixing both dowoon and wonpil with a scornful stare like they would a dirty washcloth. maybe it’s because their hands are linked, even if hidden away in the pocket of wonpil’s jacket, but dowoon figures that it should be obvious anyways. but perhaps, it’s so easy to read how drunk both of them are, and ultimately what makes them most repulsive to the eyes of… not-dowoons and wonpils. just two way more than just tipsy holding hands and laughing loudly at nothing at all in the subway. 

wonpil talks a lot, acts like it’s harder to stop rather than start, while dowoon keeps silent and probably pays too much attention to compensate for his lack of conscience. he hardly hears anything, head swimming and tipping, leans in way too close, stares at wonpil’s animated eyes with too intent a stare. in some ways, he understands wonpil; once he poses his gaze on him, the effort to tear it away is excruciatingly taxing, to stop what has him so smitten, what has his heart racing against the clock.

when they arrive, their first response to dowoon’s beautiful house interior is to take a shower. it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. 

being the least drunk of the two, dowoon strips wonpil of his clothes before taking off his own. wonpil helps himself, steals all the place and teases dowoon by grabbing the shower head for himself, laughs heartily when dowoon folds his arms around him to take it back. the pristine walls render their voices loud and piercing but it doesn’t bother them. 

steam pours out of the shower stall, coats their skin in a thick layer of heat, makes wonpil’s eyes twice as heavy when they look at him with the ever so enchanting ardor. 

it doesn’t strike him at all that they’re naked. 

he doesn’t remember much, a few curves here and there and splendid pallor reflecting against the light, soaked in that blistering sheen of wetness and suds—it blinds him, it cuts his respiration. wonpil’s wet bangs and his lackluster smile, maybe a pair of dainty hands reaching out to scrub dowoon’s scalp. 

they’re all mismatched scraps of memories put together in one loose string, rather dim in dowoon’s mind. 

they help to dry the other with two baby blue towels that would litter his bathroom and would later be found by dowoon the next morning. they fall asleep on the couch, each crevice of wonpil’s body filling in all the gaps left by dowoon. 

—

the next morning, when wonpil leaves his house sober and not so tactile as his drunk self has been, dowoon regrets not pulling him into a bone crushing hug to express how much he likes him.

—

things between them are stagnant, dowoon torn between _doing_ and _not doing_ , acting and keeping still, speaking shyly and not at all. he gradually wants to see wonpil more and more, each time with a stronger need than the last. 

he wants to phone him at night like old school lovers, wants to hear his voice before sleeping, wants to go up to him during lunch, wants to wrap his arms around him in an intimate embrace. he wants to, he does. between hesitation and self-doubt, their relationship doesn’t improve. 

wonpil watches him practice almost every night, sleeps over even during weekdays, waits for dowoon after class. their friendship is improving. but dowoon wants more than that. 

—

“how’s band practice?” wonpil asks on a cloudy day, the plain grey clouds overhead billowed and making dowoon wonder whether the rain is going to wash out all the paint they’ve just finished lathering on the wall of his house as dowoon’s parents instructed him to via a pathetic scrap of paper. the grass is stiff and poking through the fabric of dowoon’s shorts, green and swerving in the blowing wind. the sky grumbles a sound full of promises of rain. 

“it’s alright, i suppose.” dowoon says after sipping his orange juice, trying not to stare at wonpil’s lips wrapped around his own straw. he opens his mouth in an effort to speak more, to maintain this liveliness on such a bleak day. “bassist keeps on stumbling on the bridge. guitarist really knows nothing about guitars. he said he’s better at bass but hyung doesn’t want to give up his position.” he’s run out of things to speak of, smiles weakly under his palm at the attention wonpil is giving him. bashfully, he continues without meeting wonpil’s eager eyes. “i wish we had a pianist, though.”

wonpil grins, sputters a little. “what are you saying…” he mumbles, gently pushes dowoon’s head and lets his hand linger to ruffle his hair. 

“it would have been better if… you know, you were in the band.”

“i can’t, you know that.”

“sure.” dowoon recalls wonpil’s words, that if not for his impending finals, he would have played in the band as well. regardless of where dowoon is, he always wishes for wonpil to be there with him (gag him with a spoon right?). it makes the loneliness a little less heavy to bear, when the weight is shared. you make things so much better, he aches to confess.

“you’re doing fine, aren’t you?”

“yeah, of course.” _i like you so much._

“i’m sure you’ll do well for the concert. you always do so well.” 

“i suppose so.” _what can i do?_

“is there something wrong?”

dowoon sighs, drops his head to the side. “hyung, can i ask you something?”

“what is it?” wonpil doesn’t hesitate.

“how do you feel… being friends with me?”

for a moment, there’s soft silence. the neighborhood is customarily ghost-quiet, almost eerie at times. the occasional rumble of grass as the swelling wind sweeps through the hushed streets of the neighborhood. it eases dowoon into panic, but should he look up, he would’ve seen the incredulous smile on wonpil’s face.

“are you seriously asking me that?” 

“i want to know.” he mutters sternly.

“you’re a great friend, dowoon. i wouldn’t be here if i didn’t enjoy your company.” it’s only when wonpil whispers those words that dowoon permits himself to relax, to loosen the stiff knots in his shoulders.

“i’m just… younger. i hope it doesn’t burden you to hang out with me.”

“trust me, i wouldn’t even have bothered if i didn’t like you. and it’s not like a year younger makes a huge difference. not to me, after all. you shouldn’t let it bother you too much, right?” 

“right. thank you, hyung.” _i like you, too,_ he aches to say back. 

—

he counts. it’s been five months since he met wonpil for the first time. he wonders, how long has jae known wonpil? what about sungjin? or younghyun? is five months too short? he watches again, wonpil laughing at something younghyun said. his stomach tightens. he walks away.

—

there are no compelling reasons other than the unbearable boredom that lead dowoon to this festival. there is a quiet promise of ice cream and sizzled beef, which considerably sweetens the deal. he doesn’t know why this festival is being held or what it actually hails, but he finds himself there anyways. 

not even a few minutes after dowoon has stepped foot in the extended area where the festival carried out, a quieter place well suited to his liking, he spots wonpil almost right away, queued behind an ice cream stall, stationed beside an elated-looking younghyun. 

the last peachy rays of the sun are setting behind the tall but vague silhouettes of the trees encompassing the area, shrouding the boisterous crowd in thick shadows. the lanterns flicker on, immediately fixes wonpil’s skin with an ethereal glimmer. younghyun is animatedly talking, throwing his hands in the air and makes wonpil’s chest heave with unmerciful laughter. 

objectively, they look like nothing more than friends. but the heart is never objective, and dowoon experiences the ultimate clenching of jaw in irrational envy. as soon as he arrived, he finds himself already leaving. 

there’s a bench tucked in a lonely-looking corner, and as much as this decision of withdrawing himself reflects his tedious life as a whole, he still trudges over like he never had a choice. perhaps he never did. nobody would enjoy being webbed to the throes of loneliness so willingly. 

he’s thinking of going home, drench himself in cold water to at least feel physically alive and squeeze both his eyes and his brain shut with enough force to knot himself to sleep. however, dowoon is more than mildly repulsed by the prospect of unlocking his door to find the neverending, ghastly dark corridors staring back at him and sucking him inside. better stay alone in a crowded place, even if it wouldn’t make him feel more accompanied. the blooming sound of a gathering crowd is more reassuring than the dead hum of his air conditioner.

not even his grumbling stomach compels him to lift his desolate self up. it’s most certainly very silly to be angry over speculation, because who knows what younghyun is to wonpil? it might as well have been a few minutes of slumping down against the rusty armchairs of the park bench, those minutes have perhaps turned into interminable hours. but sooner or later, a figure that dowoon could recognize anywhere enters his peripheral vision, straps his racing heart to his throat.

without wasting time, dowoon sits up to leave enough place for wonpil to sit, smoothing down his ruffled hair. a carton bowl of ice cream is shoved under his nose, in tandem with a comely smile that smells as sugary as the sweet before him. 

he hasn’t even had dinner yet, but he accepts it anyway. 

it’s silent for a while, save for the occasional rumble of children’s laughter and the incessant, incoherent buzz of conversations. 

“i’ll always have time for you.” wonpil says, too out-of-the-blue that it leaves dowoon nonplussed. wonpil casually scoops ice cream into his mouth and offers him a smile. “i know you feel as though i have no reason to care for you. i do though, you know that?”

“i guess so.” dowoon shrugs, pretends like this didn’t just ruffle the strings of his heart. 

“can i hug you?”

“if you want to.” he answers, but his hands are trembling and his heartbeat is too fast for him and he might throw up. finally, wonpil hugs him tight, and dowoon hugs him back.

suddenly, everything is okay.

—

dowoon doesn’t need a reason to not drink from the bottle of water directly. he doesn’t need a reason to scurry back home before dinnertime. nor does he need a reason to sleep before the clock ticks midnight, lets the bright bulbs of his basement shine on his drum set as he hits away until the first chirps of the morning birds. 

dowoon doesn’t need a reason not to happily hum as the pouring rain drenches over him, soaks into his uniform shirt until it sticks to him like a second skin. he does it because he can, won’t have to face reprimanding judgements when he gets home. the most consequential outcome that would ever graze him is the unrelenting cold he’d catch the next morning, but at least he’d have expected it. 

something latches on his shoulders and dowoon jumps, shifts the weight on his back. there’s a quick blur of pallor and flushed ears and fine points of drenched hair before a pair of lips knocks into his and steals his breath away. 

dowoon freezes, fingers gripping at the foggy air and the thick drops of rain. the faint smell of wet dirt mingled with the adulterated scent of wonpil shoots up his nose and dowoon undergoes an array of at least four emotions at once. soon, he poses his frail and cold-bitten fingers along the lines of wonpil’s face. 

and when the realization of everything settles on the more rational part of his brain, dowoon unwittingly tears himself away in panic. 

“what, you don’t like to kiss?” wonpil’s bangs are plastered along the curve of his forehead, his hair has lost its normally fluffy volume that has markedly slumped down, and he’s holding himself together, like he hasn’t just kissed dowoon on the mouth. his forehead bears a faint red mark peeking from the gaps left by his wet bangs, where he’d bumped his forehead against dowoon’s in his sudden sweet intrusion. 

“of course i do.” he answers half-heartedly, only because he doesn’t fully trust the functionality of his voice. 

wonpil smiles, leans in, and captures dowoon’s lips once again, this time a little less impromptu and abrupt to the point of paralyzing him into a defunct statue of mud.

he’s kissed before, but not like this. not the soft brush of lips kind, cushiony and frail, short, consecutive kisses and then long, long press of lips. it’s wet because of the rain, wonpil licks dowoon’s lips and opens up a whole new world for dowoon. it’s all unvisited territory.

“do you really like me?” dowoon asks despite the situation.

“i wouldn’t be doing this if i didn’t.”

“ah…”

“do you not like me?”

“nothing like that… i do. i really do.” dowoon is bad with words, barely manages to articulate the confession. “why would you say that?” 

“just to make sure.” there’s a smile, a flutter of his heart. 

“i’ve liked you for a long time, hyung.”

“i know.”

_i know._

—

it’s almost the day of his concert. it also means wonpil’s finals are only getting closer. summer vacation is around the corner. but good news tend to come with bad luck; by the end of summer vacation, dowoon would be stripped of any wonpil-related things to hold on to. it translates into his return to the bottom of the well, where he can only see the faint light of the day turning into nights turning into days without being able to even remotely reach up to it, or contribute to life-changing events. 

“dowoon-ah, i’ll be studying in seoul.”

“ah… how far is it?”

“couple of hours from here. by train.”

“you think i can visit sometimes?”

“of course.”

“frequently?” dowoon asks, wonpil laughs. he flushes. too eager.

“of course, dowoon-ah.”

he can only hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as his mind pictured it to be.

—

tonight, his hair is slicked back with gel and he is tucked beneath a sleeveless black hoodie and a pair of washed out shorts, socks that ride up the length of his calves paired with white sneakers. it’s not his usual set of clothing, but his music teacher had told him that it fit his body well and put up a pleasant display of his biceps, so dowoon knows better than to distrust the judgement of those who had more experience than him in the spectrum of fashion. 

stretching out in front of him and even beyond his bandmates is a horde of spectators waiting to hear their works. it’s intimidating, ear-splittingly loud and almost overwhelming, but dowoon is undeterred. he has experienced stage fright a few times, but there definitely are perks of performing behind a large instrument. he is hidden away from the ocean of eyes and wailing mouths, secure in his own hurdle. 

but then, he can’t properly see as clearly when he scans for that one familiar face he can’t seem to spot. he’s about to start anytime soon now. the guitarist and the bassist are still busy with their instrument arrangements and finding the right option to plug in the right cable. 

his music teacher is yelling over the pitched howls of the crowd for him to start. that vein that has materialized along his neck tells dowoon enough about his temperament. dowoon’s stomach twists, wonpil isn’t here. 

it’s a shame that he’d miss the beginning. maybe he’ll make it. 

by the end of their song, dowoon cranes his neck to search the rows of people, only to fall back down in despair. no sign of wonpil. the knot in his stomach tugs with venomous sharpness. they move on to the next song, wonpil still nowhere to be found. 

wonpil said he’d come. he recalls it under the form of a promise, but only vaguely so because dowoon has been convinced anyways, what with the eager and certain tone imbibed in his words. he never really had a doubt, but with all the certainty he’d lived with in company of wonpil, he begins to think it a little strange that it never left enough place for fear. 

they move on to the next song, and dowoon has very little time to quickly stand up and run his eyes along every single familiar faces. he’s _standing up_ , propped on his feet and borderline perching on his tippy toes. again, he’s left shrunken in disappointment. perhaps his heart is too shriveled for the likes of wonpil. 

he said he’d come. 

he hits hard, bites his lips, swallows the swell in his throat. he stomps on the lever with unnecessary force, driving his frustration into the percussions of his drums. they move on to another song. 

wonpil isn’t here. 

of course he wouldn’t come. of course he would walk away on dowoon before anything had the chance to even flourish. what did he expect? someone patient enough to handle him? and what exactly is wrong with him? 

he slips here and there, but wonpil isn’t here, so what’s the point of caring? he breaks his drumstick, recovers one in slowest time records and hits again. he spots a few girls screaming his name, looking up at him despite being placed at the furthest area of the stage and yelling and singing to their song. their joyful energy would have coaxed the simplest of smiles on his face, but dowoon doesn’t. he can’t. wonpil isn’t here. 

this is something he spent the longest time working for. it’s significant to him just as much as wonpil’s presence on this day is. playing the drums has never been a serious activity for him until wonpil came around and coerced him to partake in a band. it’s a beginning, one he wished wonpil, who has entrusted him with a promise, could have at least witnessed. obviously, it has to go down the drain in less than two seconds, and the next thing he knows, this concert means nothing to him anymore. 

dowoon gives up trying to look. it could only give his drab heart additional pinches rather than fix anything, or bring forth any speck of hope. 

when it’s over and the spotlight shifts to black, dowoon doesn’t waste any time in descending down the scene, keeps the bite on his tongue steady and firm. he’s stiff, unceremoniously wipes his skin slick with sweat as though nobody is watching him. the group of girls did scurry over to see him, him in particular (and he asks why, because it’s only at the end of the school year that they ever noted his existence). 

this is the ugly truth. not even two weeks prior, wonpil has kissed him, asked him out, and kissed him some more between the first and the last time that morning. 

he ignores the girls who have taken a sudden interest in him, dodges them until he reaches a recluse area, wherever that is. faint calls of his name resonate in the background, but dowoon doesn’t hear them over the heavy beats of his heart. he doesn’t even know where he is, but when he looks up, his heart lurches out of his chest. wonpil is there, and the world stops to spin for a fleeting moment. 

“hi.” wonpil says, no trace of guilt marking his features. 

hi?

“hyung?” the anger is thinly veiled in his voice, searing and swelling, but wonpil doesn’t seem to pick up the hint. 

“you played well. i’m not sure if i should be proud of you or not surprised at all that you performed this well.” 

“you…?” wonpil comes closer, dowoon blinks. 

“don’t you think i didn’t see you break your drumsticks. whatchu got in those arms, bricks?”

“you… came?” 

“of course i did, what are you talking about? i told you that i would.” 

dowoon launches forward, grabs the whole of wonpil into his arms, pulls him against him. the tenseness in his joints melts almost instantly, his arms slithering around wonpil’s shoulder with less difficulty. he trembles, relief washing over him, swallows back the bile lodged in his throat. he’s sweaty, but wonpil smells sweet. 

“but i didn’t see you.” he confesses, holding wonpil’s shoulders with his hands as he pulls back. 

“i was watching from the back. better view from back there.” he winks, cards his hand through dowoon’s hair. dowoon smiles and pokes his nose in wonpil’s cheek, inhales his scent. “you did so well, dowoonie.” 

“thank you, hyung.” 

“and you look good too.” 

dowoon has been hugely mistaken. sometimes, fear takes over, but at least it brings his unknown complexes into enlightened awareness. he came to realize that he most fears the disappearance of the only object that has lit up his life like an endless disarray of explosives. who wouldn’t, in his place? 

perhaps he might have reacted out of rational proportions. but he still thinks he had a right to, after all that wonpil means to him. 

—

dowoon is silent as he has promised to be when he beckoned wonpil over to study at his house instead. dowoon has actually expected to hear a mild-mannered rejection and has even braced himself for it, ran the question as deadpan as a dry joke can get. but wonpil has taken less than the usual time to get to his house. for the first time, dowoon opens the door with a sweet greeting; warm pair of arms circling his waist and a nose nuzzling his neck. 

wonpil doesn’t study a lot, as he has once divulged, but when he does, he goes the extra mile: no music, glasses on, armed with highlighters of every color, hands stiff around stacks of papers, cramming heaps of words in his head. he doesn’t like to be disturbed. 

he lays flat on dowoon’s king sized bed unmoving for the past half an hour save for the turning of pages, face stoic in stark concentration. dowoon didn’t have the heart to disrupt the intensity which tied his attention in a tight knot, so he stays still and reads his own book, attention occasionally drifting to his boyfriend. he’s completely immersed in his geography book, unmindful of dowoon’s fingers scratching the back of his neck and threading into his hair when he has given up on keeping his hands to himself. 

they do this a lot, spend time in idle silence and entice themselves in the rhythm of the other’s breathing. somewhere along the way, wonpil would cave in and roll around in bed with dowoon, getting their legs tangled in his covers and embalming the scent of his shampoo everywhere on dowoon’s sheets. they’d make out, rub noses, steal kisses between short conversations before wonpil would gently smack his arm and accuse dowoon for greatly distracting him. 

even then, dowoon would shift his weight to lay atop wonpil’s back, pick at the bristles of his hair and watch as it fans out between his fingers, would softly bite at his neck, drawing out strings of small, breathless purrs. then, if it’s his lucky day, wonpil would gravitate onto his back to lock dowoon’s neck with his arms in a tight embrace, would press butterfly kisses on his jaw, would massage his scalp and would simply hold him close. 

then if dowoon gets a little luckier (he seems to have been for the past few weeks), wonpil would straddle his hips, chastely kiss him and gradually drag it out into a full blown make out session. 

dowoon likes this a lot. 

he thinks he might like wonpil a little too much, but he doesn’t even begin to register it.

—

“dowoon-ah, after my exams-“

“shh, hyung, let’s not talk about it.”

“alright.”

—

wonpil has never looked this anxious. but he’s far from dowoon and standing in front of his exam room, blankly staring a hole in the door, squeezed between jae and sungjin. younghyun is all the way behind, keeping a firm eye on his friends. 

wonpil meets dowoon’s eyes, offers a meek smile, the tight one that immediately gives away the evident stress plaguing his system, and holds a fist up. 

dowoon finds himself helpless and at a distance way too far to do anything, pulls his lips up into an encouraging grin and holds two of his fists up. it causes a feeble laugh to rumble through wonpil. it’s worth it. 

—

it’s the beginning of summer vacation, wonpil aced his exams with modest grades, kisses the life out of dowoon. they’re both excited, but dowoon’s smile dims out a little at the thought of what’s to come next. 

wonpil would be gone with the wind. 

—

“you don’t actually expect me to go there without paying you back, do you?” 

“yes, i totally do.”

“i can’t do that dowoon-ah.”

“yes, you can. come with me, hyung.”

“at least let me pay for my own ticket.” 

“i got you covered, it’s alright.”

“no no no. no. it’s not.” 

“please?” 

“dowoon.”

“we won’t have many occasions like this. please.”

“alright. only this once, okay?”

dowoon knows wonpil isn’t digging him up for his wealth. it pulls a smile on his face. 

“okay.”

—

dowoon has decided to call this trip the dawning of their wonderful sex adventures. that’s what the seaside and the ambience of their hotel room did to their brains, especially when wonpil has found a pack of condoms snuggled between those snacks the hotel service provided (“they provide _condoms?_ ” “yes hyung, it’s normal”). dowoon hasn’t expected it to be so soon, him being marginally experienced and still lost on wonpil’s preferences, and he couldn’t say that it prepared him for the amazing nights spent naked with wonpil. 

there are several factors that triggered some kind of serious sexual tension between them: it’s summer, and as they drench their feet in the salty sea rolling waves against their calves, dowoon has taken to wearing sleeveless tank tops that left his shoulders exposed to the merciless sun. wonpil is a little more careful with his skin, choosing to wear shorts that stopped way above his knees instead, but keeping a large shirt draped over his lanky body. whatever he wears, the sight of him has always been quite tantalizing. 

the slightly damp breeze twirling around their limbs render them fairly moist and shining in the pouring sunlight. he has never had the chance to see wonpil in anything else than the bland school uniform and casual clothes (and naked, once, but he barely remembers). let’s just say this whole setting pushed them both past the threshold of intimacy. it coaxed out feelings and sensations buried deep in dowoon’s body that has never seen the light of day, only emerging in the darkness of his room behind drawn curtains and the locked door, the computer screen blaring explicit content that makes him feel weird every time afterwards. 

dowoon and wonpil do it between the thick folds of their blanket, air conditioning on blast, seemingly never reaching an end. it’s not wonpil’s first time, but it’s dowoon’s, so they settle for the classic disposition: both bare and entirely stripped of any kind of clothing, wonpil laid flat on the mattress, every inch of dowoon strapped to his body, his shoulders bearing wonpil’s bent knees and pushing his thighs completely against his chest. needless to say, it’s sloppy at first, impaired ministrations and mild slips, but pleasant nonetheless. dowoon finds it difficult to push through wonpil, meets all kinds of resistance on his way in and out. eventually, a pace is set and it has dowoon sunken beneath layers of ecstatic drunkenness, brings unknown passions above the surface of life to manifest across his mobile features. 

unraveling in their intimacy, wonpil bumps his head against the headboard in pleasure, trembles as waves upon waves of erotic satisfaction roll through him mercilessly as dowoon holds him tight, thrusts in and out and in and out. dowoon is too full of pride to vocalize the bliss clouding the back of his eyes, but lets the occasional groan and grunt escape past the lush of his lips, caught in the webs of primitive pleasure. too soon, they release their loads and they pant against each other, fingers entwined sweetly and lips sealed to the other. and then round two begins between scraps of mindless conversation. 

the king sized bed is none too large for them, but at least it allows them to roll around and make the best of such large surface. 

—

the rest of the week, they barely see the sun, except when the afternoon rays peek through the curtains. when they do, it’s because they take lazy strolls along the beach, holding hands and getting sand between their toes, poking their noses between the salty ripples of the wind. they’re warm from the inside out, wonpil still smells wonderful even layered with the moist breeze and the searing sun. when he entertained the thought of never wanting to let go of wonpil’s hand, dowoon knows he’s never been so deeply in love. 

their nights are sweetly pleasant, spent exploring each other and rediscovering themselves. dowoon learns the lines and curves of wonpil’s body when touching him, studies every single element that causes static to ripple through wonpil, every single trigger to the moans of his throat and twists of his body. wonpil loves it slow, with steadfast movements and promising pushes of hips over stuttering thrusts so fast that he can hardly feel anything but pain and discomfort. wonpil loves to be touched, to be sternly held by the hips, to be pinned down until all of his breath leaves his lungs. 

it makes him forget about life before, makes him wonder what has taken him so long. now, his life seems infinitely less stale and dry. 

eventually, their trip comes to a wistful end. they take the train back home, fingers still gripping around each other’s and wonpil’s head finding dowoon’s strong shoulder. they read a book together, shares an earbud as dowoon nods off to sleep atop wonpil’s head, and just simply enjoy each other’s presence. 

dowoon was chewing on the sandwich wonpil fed him when the train nears their destination. as the announcer informs them that there are only 20 minutes left until they arrive, dowoon is struck with a sudden realization: soon, this will not exist anymore. time flies by so fast that dowoon thinks wonpil might only be a product of his ever so imaginative mind. that would explain why he yields all the requirements dowoon looked for in a partner, but the mere prospect of wonpil being unreal is all but embarrassingly stupid. only, dowoon can’t help but doubt the fairytale-ness of it all. 

“i don’t want you to go.” dowoon says.

“i don’t want to go either.” wonpil replies sleepily, snuggles in the crook of his neck. “i wish i could stay.”

 _don’t ask him to stay_ , thinks dowoon, a little over the moon. 

—

he tries not to get too jealous and lonely during days wonpil isn’t here and out with his own friends. he goes to find his own, tries not to catch wonpil somewhere. he tries. 

—

it’s already mid august, and whenever wonpil drops by his home, they spend their afternoons cooped up inside dowoon’s room, swimming in the air conditioner. dowoon hugs his knees close to his body, refusing to even remotely touch wonpil. he’s afraid, that maybe with a frail grasp, wonpil would disappear. it’s already hard now, how will he manage this for those lonely 300-something days?

“we won’t break up, right?”

“dowoon-ah…”

“what if you meet someone new?”

“what if _you_ will?”

“it won’t make a difference.” he says confidently.

“it won’t, for me too.” wonpil scoots closer, takes dowoon in his warm embrace, kisses him. dowoon lets him. “it’s a promise.”

“it’s a promise.” he repeats. 

showing sadness is very uncharacteristic of him, but to express his insecurities is a whole new level of uncharacteristic-ness. in this case, dowoon doesn’t think anything would have stopped him from slightly panicking at the apprehending of wonpil’s absence. it’s only human, and wonpil of all people would best understand him, if not because the feeling is shared. 

he knows love always comes hand-in-hand with complications and adversity to some extent, but they’re two in this hardship, although it’s not in dowoon’s habits to empathize with someone. wonpil is there to see him stripped of his backbone, he’s there to realize that dowoon is more sensitive than he makes it seem, that there’s more to him but that stoic facade that filters his sadness into fabricated bliss, but more importantly, he’s there to not make any judgements and help him rebuild himself the way he should have been had loneliness not bitten away at his confidence and only leave place for self-doubt as a result. 

wonpil is truly, genuinely more than just a lover. dowoon probably knows him more than he knows himself. and he vows for it to stay the way it is for as long as it was allowed to sustain, despite believing that it wouldn’t last forever. a little bit of wishful thinking never hurt nonetheless. 

—

time is not going backwards. although wonpil is just moving in another city, it all feels like he’s leaving the world. the qualms couldn’t be pacified regardless of what wonpil tells him, so dowoon could only stand idly and do nothing as time melts away. 

they went to the park, wonpil hanging on dowoon’s hand and laughing and smiling beside him. ultimately, dowoon is happy, despite himself. they’re sincere and heartfelt, those emotions he had yet to refine, as his life as a ripening teenage boy was spent rather poorly, what with the lack of parental warmth and his ineptitude at social bonding. wonpil was there to compensate for it all, which dowoon finds himself strikingly more than just thankful. 

the sky is dark and starless, and if dowoon spends a second longer looking at it, he would’ve thought that the bottomless abyss would suck him in and forever detain him. he gently tugs wonpil along, who seems to be lost in a trance as his gaze stretches into the distance, and they head to the subway station, headed homewards to sleep their trepidation away, bunched up between pillows and blankets and a warm body. 

the train is vacant, as it always seem to be. they’re sat next to one another, naturally, linked hands limply resting between their thighs. 

“i’m not leaving forever.” wonpil suddenly says, a reassuring smile, a magnetic force drawing dowoon to plant a dry kiss on his lips. but he doesn’t quite understand those words. “i’ll come visit. i’ll call you often. we’ll text. there’s nothing to be worried about.” he shifts his whole body to properly face dowoon, stirring the backpack slung over his shoulder. “we can make it work,” he continues in a whisper when dowoon doesn’t answer. 

“only two days left, hyung.” there’s nothing left he wants to point out but the looming dismay that would hang in the form of a question mark in the future wonpil-less days, as in what is dowoon to do now? perhaps it might be a little selfish to only think about his upcoming loneliness, and he could only justify himself with fear. the loss would be too great.

“it’s okay, dowoon-ah. i promise it’ll all be okay.” 

_i promise._

—

wonpil is gone. 

—

two months go by quickly, everything is fine. 

the loneliness is expected, but the heavy weight of deprivation is less awaited. it isn’t all too bad. dowoon thinks he’s handling it better than he’d first anticipated. almost every night, he’d be warmly wrapped in his covers, eyes sore from the light blaring from his laptop propped on an extra pillow, displaying wonpil’s sleeping face. he’d crawl to sleep with a smile, either from a brief but meaningful text from wonpil, either by chatting for a while on skype on golden days. it always involves wonpil, somehow.

they text each other frequently, sharing updates about their lives. wonpil is managing his time well in college, balancing time for classes, homework, housework, burnt meals and of course, dowoon. it flatters him, to belong in someone’s schedule. it surprises him that wonpil seems to miss him just as much as dowoon does. it saddens him when wonpil would painfully croak out how much he missed his hugs, his arms, his kisses. it arouses him when wonpil takes off his clothes on camera. it excites him when wonpil would fix him with a profound, fond stare, like a silver lining shooting through the parted clouds to pour all over him. like he’s the most precious thing that has ever occurred in his life. 

actually, life is still quite the same, but the better part of it is solely lived through screens. 

his school life still goes on as usual, as if wonpil has never been there, and is just a mobile image in the screen of his laptop, a bunch of texts clogging his messages, a sweet, warm voice in his speakers.  
dowoon stays in the band, reminiscent of wonpil, but he secretly hopes the year-end concert could serve as an excuse for him to come back to him.

—

_(“hyung, can you sing for me?”_

_“mh, what song do you have in mind?”_

_“i don’t know. how about western songs?”_

_“like what?”_

_“despacito?”_

_in the screen, wonpil rolls his eyes, hides his smile in his pillow. “you’re insulting me.” he laughs. dowoon laughs too, softly, meekly. he misses wonpil’s hand in his, the tangible touch of wonpil on his body. the smell of wonpil’s shampoo._

_“love me like you do.” he says._

_“huh? of course, dowoon.” wonpil replies. dowoon waits, for wonpil to part his beautiful lips and start singing. he hadn't realized that his eyes were closed until the silence wakes him up. and then something grazes his mind, and he flushes bright red._

_“i… meant the song, hyung.”_

_“oh,” wonpil laughs. “that was awkward.”_

_they wave the momentary tension away with just a single note of wonpil singing the beginning of the song to dowoon, the weak connection making his voice crack and tremble occasionally, but otherwise, it’s so enchanting that dowoon is struggling to sleep. he wants to hear it forever._

_before they go to sleep, dowoon whispers: “i love you too, hyung.”_

_wonpil has already turned the lights off, something dowoon wishes he hadn’t done because he’s disappointed to miss the blush dusting his cheeks. he doesn’t need to doubt whether it’s there or not, wonpil’s silence and shifting is already proof enough of his fluster._

_and before he knows it, dowoon drifts off into a dreamless sleep, a smile, a steady heartbeat.)_

—

with nothing else distracting enough to quench his anxiety, dowoon sits on the concrete steps to his home, vain in his attempts at slowing down the hammering of his heart. the night isn’t quite young anymore, shrouding his vision and rendering it difficult to see. his socked foot taps restlessly on the stiff grass frozen in the merciless weather of december. if he didn’t entwine his hands together to keep them firm under his cold nose, he’s sure they would have joined the panic-stricken dance going on in his feet. 

the vague shapes of the trees in his neighbor’s garden is so much uglier in the obscurity, reminding him of the untidy piles of dirty clothes chucked into a corner of his parents’ room. thankfully, tonight, they’re home to take care of this eyesore of a sight. it doesn’t even occur to him until now that their parents’ presence doesn’t mark a particular effect upon him.  
the lampposts in this area of the city have never been really bright, and dowoon remembers scoffing when residents have taken a petition to keep them dim-lit, finding beauty in their romantic emanation. he only finds it ridiculous. he mentally notes to tell wonpil afterwards, when he sees him later. 

his heart skips a painful beat at the thought of wonpil, because under this crescent moon, dowoon is going to see him again, touch him and feel him again without a screen separating their worlds. it has only been four months, but dowoon is allowed to think about wonpil with a profound sense of longing. he’s been weaving back and forth between crawling under a rock, hidden away from social interactions, and binding himself with the only person dowoon deems closest to the prospect of home; despite the huge and luxurious compartment he lives in, dowoon would choose wonpil’s arms, where he sleeps better than in his own sheets. 

however, wonpil and dowoon’s parents would never be a good mix. for one, he doesn’t think his parents know him well enough to understand his sexual tendency, but he’s almost convinced that they wouldn’t come around as too accepting. tolerant, at best, although dowoon knows there is much more than just ‘tolerance’ within parental love. his family has never been penchant toward traditional conventions, and dowoon doesn’t like to pretend otherwise. he just knows how narrow-minded they are, in this spectrum. he could lie and say that wonpil is his friend, which isn’t all that much of a lie, but it would only insult their relationship. but more importantly, if anyone is going to take the blow for _being in love_ , it isn’t going to be him. it’s wonpil, and for obvious reasons, their relationship meets an array of resistance that would be too much of unnecessary hassle to get through. after all, did his parents really need to know? and thus, it leads him to the present as he waits searing heartbeats after searing heartbeats, molding together a sneaking-wonpil-in operation plan. 

which also explains his current anxiety, adding up to the dizzying excitement of seeing wonpil after so long. to be fair, the second part overshadows pretty much his conscience as a whole, but dowoon focuses on adjusting his vision to the darkness to best his attempt at deciphering the lanky figure fast-walking from the other extremity of the pavement.

thin, not very tall, bony elbows, ruffled hair… 

“hyung!” dowoon shoots up from his seated position as he whisper-yells, hastily stomps his way to swing his arms around wonpil and lift him off the ground. wonpil throws his head back in laughter, the pitch of it accompanied by a gyrate that rumbles against dowoon’s temple. not an inch of their bodies isn’t at least grazing the other.

“i missed you so much.” wonpil breathes into his neck. he’s cold, yet so warm in his thick winter jacket, smells like the unadulterated sweetness always crowning his very being, as though permanently etched into his skin. it feels so nice, so complete, to be physically in contact with wonpil again, to feel his heartbeat against his chest, the bristles of his hair tickling his nose, the dip of his waist under his forearms. 

they take the rest up in dowoon’s room, whereupon they lay naked and filled to the brim hours later, glowing and in love. 

dowoon rubs his cheek into wonpil’s chest, scooting deeper into the crook of his neck, tastes wonpil’s scent as much as he could take. wonpil is glaring past the stainless windows and at the radiant moon, eyes dreamy and distant. 

“what are you thinking of?” dowoon asks, cups one of his hand around wonpil’s chin to gently stroke his lower lip with the rough pad of his thumb. wonpil juts it out and attempts to catch dowoon’s adventurous finger with a threatening bite, ripping a soft laughter from him. 

“i was thinking…” wonpil says, weakly holding dowoon’s wrist in his hand. 

“hm?”

“you could move in with me, when you go off to college.”

“i never said i was going to seoul.” dowoon teases, although he has never been more certain of his ideal destination. 

“you get what i meant…” wonpil murmurs, kisses dowoon’s thumb. 

“mhm. i’ll consider it, hyung.” 

but both of them knew without much effort that dowoon didn’t really need consideration. 

—

christmas vacation was short, and he didn’t manage to seize many opportunities to have wonpil with him. 

the same day his parents are boarding their plane to god knows where, and consequently has dowoon trapped to assist them in hoisting their luggage, wonpil’s train arrived to whisk him far and away from dowoon. he never gets a chance to see him off. 

wonpil isn’t upset, sympathizes with the whole predicament, and dowoon couldn’t be more grateful, although secretly a little defeated.

—

upon further notice, dowoon is doing much better than he thought. five more months have passed since christmas vacation, and dowoon finds himself already preparing and meticulously rehearsing for his year-end concert, to which wonpil will be coming for a longer-term visit. the vow has him engaged into neverending hours of training, of reconditioning himself and his friendship with others, ultimately improving the sides of himself that he didn’t even know existed. 

for example, after his first time with wonpil, it all feels like a metaphorical blanket of libido has dawned upon him, leaving him to crave and give shape to some kind of itch, at which appeasing it has become his primordial duty to fulfill. he has long since become good friends with his band mates, but they aren’t enough a distraction from every single thing dowoon has grown to notice. have girls’ breasts always been this big? have waists always appealed to him the way it did now? has it ever been easy for him to get turned on just by seeing wonpil’s sleeping form under his blanket (not to mention through such a thin component as his laptop screen)? he’s not sure, but all he knows is that it’s too unbearable an itch to only have his right hand at his disposition. it doesn’t quite amount to the same. the only explanation dowoon has taken upon himself to piece together is that he’s a late bloomer. it has taken a significant push from wonpil for him to fall all the way from the very crest of the hill. 

it’s just like a switch has been flipped, and now that he’s alone and surrounded by thin and empty air, there’s not much he can choose from to placate this insufferable itch. a 18+ movie and a box of tissues were very much in order weekly, the vivid image of wonpil and more wonpil-related stuff filling in the gaps and coaxing him into emanation with a loud cry, almost painfully so. it’s short-lived bliss and carnal satisfaction that is only momentary, all until he deflates in desolation in his bed later that night, wishing he could have something more substantial. 

but he’s not unfaithful by any stretch of the imagination. his loyalty is as broad as his love for wonpil, which is to say, a lot. he believes that there’s nothing quite as amazing that could compare to wonpil, nothing to successfully tear his interest away. he looks to his left and to his right, sure, but without any particular enthusiasm he should be worried of. 

he sighs for the fifth time, earning himself an exasperated glare from his guitarist across the table, as he watches the spot where wonpil used to sit with his friends—laughing with younghyun, where dowoon used to always scrutiny him without ethical reserve. now, it’s occupied by a group of girls, the popular ones who, time and again, would have nothing else to do other than stubbornly throw party invitations in dowoon’s way. it’s futile, now that there aren’t any compelling reasons drawing dowoon over like a magnet. 

_just a little longer._

—

_(“dowoon?” wonpil’s slightly modified voice resounds through his speakers._

_sleepily: “hm?”_

_“when are your parents gonna be home?” he sounds tired, like he has just woken up. he probably just did. it’s 3 am. dowoon can’t sleep._

_“i don’t know. probs next month.” he pauses, waits for wonpil to answer. when he didn’t: “why?”_

_“just wanted to make sure you’re not too lonely.”_

_“oh. i’m fine. thank you hyung.”_

_“i miss you, dowoon.” he croaks after a while of silence, seemingly drifting back to sleep soon after._

_“i miss you too, hyung.”)_

—

it’s only until the next day, when dusk paints the sky a flimsy color of pearly orange and pink, that dowoon realizes the actual weight to wonpil’s words. he should’ve anticipated it, in some ways, interpreted the prime intention between the lines. instead, he finds himself almost collapsing on his knees, arms going absolutely limp, when wonpil turns up before his doorstep. where he has once been hours away from dowoon, here he is, accessible and right before his nose in what feels like a heartbeat. he wears a light smile, the crinke of his eyes soft and warm and welcoming. 

“hi.”

snapping out of his disbelief, dowoon doesn’t dare croak out a word and gently collects the whole of wonpil into his arms, squeezes tightly enough for him to feel the sudden surge of longing. 

he moves his hand across the flat surface of wonpil’s smooth back, sinks his fingers in the strands of his hair. where wonpil lacked in girth, he made it up with his broad grin that made it look like a sun was shining from within him. dowoon feels wonpil up, no longer reduced to a mere voice. 

it’s not long after that dowoon takes him by the hand, leads him further into his house, holds him close next to him on the couch as they silently watch a movie together. 

—

this time around, dowoon didn’t have to worry. in the back and wielding a vip pass is wonpil, swamped in one of dowoon’s many white shirts and the pair of midnight black trousers he wore the day before. 

the scene is still draped with a veil of blackness enrobing them and dowoon’s flickering eyes to the back, where wonpil stood with the broadest grin on his face. he’s bouncing his weight on the tip of his toes, the evident sign that subtly expresses his utter excitement, all in the name of love. 

his name is being called among the other names of his band mates, but dowoon keeps his eyes trained on wonpil who is cupping his mouth to yell a loud ‘fighting!’ over the mingled voices of the crowd. it filters effortlessly in dowoon’s ears, distinctive and searing. 

throughout his whole performance, he could never bring himself to stop whisking his head around to gaze at his lover, throwing smiles in between hitting cymbals and stomping on the lever. wonpil is singing along to the lyrics, he knows it, reads it on his lips and the emotions scattered on his features. the mere presence of wonpil stimulates a vivid energy surging through his veins, smoldering and light and coiling in his stomach. it comes out his throat in the form of unrestrained laughter, the kind dowoon always fights against because his voice cracks around the higher pitch and it’s ugly as hell, but at least it’s disguised beneath the layers of rumbles and thumps of the music. wonpil too, is laughing in the distance, hips moving in tandem with the booming instruments. 

they go home that night, taking the long route home, kind suggestion of wonpil who wanted to benefit of the warm and airy atmosphere of the premature summer while listening to dowoon’s rambling-on. he doesn’t recall speaking this much in his life, words tailing after words in an explosion of what’s been locked up inside the brackets of his chest. there is not a single hint of shyness underlying in his tone as he goes on, _-and hyung just seems lost at that moment during rehearsal it was so funny, which reminds me what did you think of the songs? not gonna lie they made me think of you more than once- okay, like three times tops. no okay i’m lying, everytime during rehearsal i’d have random thoughts of you, and breakfast… hyung! have you tried the new diner around the corner? it’s delicious!_

he doesn’t stop relaying stories after stories, rumors at school, his new friends and his future projects, that he’s decided to attend a music college. luckily, it’s in seoul, but seoul’s a big city and universities are scattered everywhere. dowoon doesn’t care; he’ll go and live with wonpil under no conditions. make him wake up at unhealthy hours just so he can get to class roughly on time in exchange of years residing in the same compartment as his lover, dowoon wouldn’t hesitate. 

he’s very excited, flails his arms as he relays one joke about one of his friends and graphically displays one of a very explicit movie he’s seen. ( _“before you ask hyung, it wasn’t fifty shades of grey.” “shame.”_ )

wonpil is very silent, almost uncharacteristically so, the occasional tug on dowoon’s hand and folding of smiles here and there. it’s as though he doesn’t dare slip a sound in between, afraid of impairing a rarity hardly ever grazing the surface of the earth. 

“hyung? you okay?”

“yeah. yeah i am.” he breathes, stares straight into the pit of dowoon’s eyes. he could squint all he wants, but all dowoon would ever spot is softness, like the light breeze weighing his lungs and whistling past his ears. his heart flutters. 

“i’m sorry.” he says bashfully, looking down to look at his sneakers stepping between the cracks carved in the pavement. “i’m just really happy to see you again.” 

wonpil laughs, keeps the smile stretched over the perfect row of his pearly whites. “you’re sorry? why are you sorry?” dowoon doesn’t answer, scrunches his lips timidly. “ _i’m_ sorry. i didn’t have the heart to interrupt. you seemed so caught in what you had to say. it’s entrancing, really.” 

“hyung?” 

“hm?” dowoon skids to a halt, holds the stare laced with honey and sugar and please gag him with a spoon. 

“i love you.” 

wonpil smiles, rubs his nose with his index finger. he’s flustered. an old habit he’s had difficulty getting rid of. he says it’s because it covers the trembling lines of his mouth when he’s nervous, and scratching the nose just looks like a good excuse. and cute. 

“me too.”

blurting out a compelling confession out of nowhere is a risky thing to do. such subject should be delicately breached, but dowoon wants to spare them the sugar-coated part he knows wonpil is guilty of loving. he’s not good at that yet, and most probably never will be, but the straight-to-the-point approach is always the more genuine one. 

it caught him off guard, it also visibly caught wonpil off guard, but that’s what made him tighten the grasp around dowoon’s hand, isn’t it? 

—

this is the point where everything changes. his bags are packed with only the necessary and cutting out the redundant, because wonpil told him that the apartment is quite cramped and left little space for two to maneuver around. 

it occurs to him that this is the very first encounter of his two separate lives—that is, if his hardly existent life with his parents counts. the collision of both worlds is almost unreal to him, but here is wonpil, leisurely speaking with his mother about school and seoul and some scraps of forgotten recipes, oozing off elegant ease like he isn’t trying at all. glowing with pride, dowoon seizes wonpil’s hips and lets his hand linger on his behind for a beat too long, long enough for his father to dip his brows in a dubious frown. 

they’re ready to take the train, dowoon’s parents already starting to bid them goodbye upon the unexpected call they received and consequently announcing their untimely retreat. 

“please take care of him, wonpil-ssi.” 

“you can trust me.” he bows, and dowoon secretly slips a hand around his waist, pulling wonpil closer. he leans in to whisper ‘i’m so happy’ against his earlobe when his parents aren’t looking, presses his nose into the frail dimple wedged in wonpil’s cheek. 

he’s so happy.

and once again, dowoon is on his way to where home is.


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's very messy, i lost track of time myself and i don't know how to count
> 
> it's full of gramatical errors and i deeply regret ever writing in the present tense
> 
> enjoy

 

 

it’s been two months since the first time dowoon stepped foot in wonpil’s apartment in seoul and since he has officially moved in. time has gone by fast, not leaving any place for discomfort or trouble in dowoon’s way. he’s adjusting well to life, weaving between college and wonpil and his new home without meeting much resistance. he hasn’t made any new friends yet, but at least he has been prepared for such difficulty.

wonpil’s apartment is much smaller than dowoon’s parents’ house, obviously, but small might even be a euphemism. it’s terribly cramped, most certainly designed for a single person to reside in. he likes it better this way anyways, having been used to overly spacious rooms where he’d feel lonely and oppressed by the distant four walls that seemed countries away.

he loves how they constantly stir on wonpil’s single bed in their best attempt at fitting both bodies without falling--and they never had the time or the disposition to buy a larger one for themselves. he lives for the way they have to squeeze themselves while maneuvering around in the kitchen as there was just the right amount of room for two to stand. their fridge is almost permanently empty, because grocery shopping is way too taxing for two college students. they at least try to load it halfway, but it’s not easy when dowoon has to wake up to wonpil curled all around him on weekends and when they both enjoy it so much that they protest at the thought of having to even move. they take turns to wash the dishes, cook half-assed meals done between tiring hours for the other one of them, clean the bedsheets and the sofa. their combined effort makes for the tidiness of their house, but mostly because wonpil is always nagging.

above all, dowoon loves wonpil’s fingers threading through his hair before it was time that they drift into a dreamless sleep, absolutely loves the scent of his lover everywhere sticking itself onto his skin like a sheen of sweat, in contrast to the flavorless familiarity of his home. he relishes in the sound of wonpil’s throaty, dry voice in the mornings after a particularly tiring night of love-making.

he’s significantly happier, and even if he had never exactly been in distress, he can feel the difference in the way his chest bubbles up everytime he comes home. even if he has to wake up at 5am nearly everyday to take the right bus to arrive appropriately on time for his classes, he deems it worth living under the same roof as his wonpil.

it’s already been a year with wonpil and dowoon never fails to brew thoughts invariably relative to him. he used to think it must be boring to mull over the same thought over long periods of time, but he has been proven wrong by himself.

he hopes the feeling is reciprocated.

\--

after some time, wonpil finally introduces him to his friends. dowoon dreadfully recognizes the younghyun guy in the immediacy that entails, his sharp features and his upbeat grin, none of which bears the evidence of his rocky adventures with wonpil. dowoon has heard so many disappointing stories about this younghyun that caused his lips to twitch at the sight of him standing soon before him. younghyun gives him a broader smile and pats his shoulder in welcome, to which dowoon only spreads out a flat smile. but then younghyun is turning to carefully regard wonpil, and dowoon narrows his eyes.

then there’s jaehyung and sungjin, who greet “wonpil’s boyfriend” with the same enthusiasm as when he first met wonpil, which is to say that dowoon doesn’t at all feel left out or disregarded.

there are vague memories of first times with them; like the first time they saw dowoon and wonpil kiss on the lips, at which they only laughed amiably like they just saw a puppy roll on its tummy before turning back to their business despite the obvious burn in dowoon’s ears. or the first time they all crashed at sungjin’s dorm room, each nursing two to six cans of beer, slowly sponged to avoid tipping into embarrassing drunkenness on dowoon’s end. it was an interesting first experience, what with a more than tipsy wonpil never letting go of his hand or younghyun toppling over sungjin as they were wrung in an intense make out session. or the first time they went on a very brief trip together in hongdae, screeching at the top of their lungs inside the karaoke booth and wonpil’s wide, happy smile as a reflection of how amazing everything turned out to be.

all in all, dowoon has been well accepted by everyone like he has always been there with them, enjoying and taking part of their senseless shenanigans. he didn’t think he’d ever be in a stage so privileged in his life.

“wonpil hyung,” he says one night, fingers entwined with his lover and toes tracing the inside of wonpil’s knee.

“hm?”

“thank you.”

“for what?” wonpil twists his upper body to peer at dowoon’s face past his thick lashes with a confused glance. he presses an exhausted kiss on wonpil’s nose.

"for everything.”

“wow not vague at all.” they laugh a bit, soft and curling in dowoon’s ears, stirring their feet beneath their blanket. dowoon can feel the edge of the bed right under his arm because the remaining of the space is occupied by wonpil who doesn’t have a clue that dowoon might fall soon. but then, he doesn’t need to know.

“seriously hyung, thank you. that’s all. no questions asked.”

“alright alright. you’re welcome dowoonie.”

 

\--

 another year goes by quickly, so fast that dowoon’s mind can’t even catch up to things anymore.

his life is spent showering with wonpil in mornings, riding the bus to college, taking his routine classes and heading back home to a warm, loving embrace. there are nights out snuggled here and there in his schedule, fading laughter and swollen melodies interweaving in the memories that haven’t yet been able to catch up with the present, barely there in the compartment of dowoon’s mind that’s weighed down by math equations or names of faraway countries.

and now, he finds himself spending summer vacations with wonpil again, and, of course, the others. they have decided to go camping in the mountains, cooking alive under the searing sun, swimming in the airy wind, and building a fire in the cold night. they’re all sat down around the fire, jae embracing his guitar and stroking the strings just right, dowoon leading the rhythm by gently tapping the spare stump he was sat on. sungjin and younghyun are singing in tandem, voices perfectly fused together. wonpil stays silent, and even with his lips sealed shut and his face painted in merigold from the bonfire waning in the rippling breeze, he still manages an otherworldly look, entrancing and ethereal.

dowoon takes to observe his friends, and some sort of pride churns in his chest, manifests itself in his soft features. he’s having the most amazing life ever.

in recent times, he has learned that jae is rash in his words, embalming them with a rather biting edge, but dowoon knows he doesn’t mean the least menacing thing. if there is one thing he could say about jae, it’s that he’s the softest, warm and affectionate once you learn which buttons to press, where to look, what to say, how to act, none of which applies to wonpil, unfortunately. but the hardest the words, the more affectionate; that’s how jae works, and dowoon figures the amount of everything must be painstakingly generous for wonpil, especially towards the mean words, but that only avails to the affection that suddenly doubles in amount. and dowoon doesn’t know whether to be worried or not.

sungjin is a kind fellow, composed and smart, but can be sourly impatient at times. dowoon admires him in a vast array of aspects, thinks if he’ll learn anything from anyone most, it was from him. a witty leader, a caring elder brother, a nagging mother hen all at once. if it were the end of the world, dowoon knows who to follow. however, sungjin has a tendency to sound or seem condescending, but like jae, it undoubtedly isn’t inscribed in his intentions.

younghyun is a little more difficult to pin down properly without seeming like an obsessive inspector. there’s something about him that dowoon couldn’t quite put his finger on; he’s awfully talented in so many fields that has dowoon wondering how the hell he’s still single. so many boys and girls have to be lining up for him, waiting to become the person enthroned to stay beside him for the rest of their lives. but it seems as though younghyun never wants to pick, like his interest is fleeting, almost forgotten, caught in the webs of hardened joy sparked by being besides his friends. he never had a real issue or concern about romance.

younghyun is good with instruments, with kids and adults alike, has an eloquent language that would entrance any renown poet, knows how to cook--although not perfectly, and so much more dowoon doesn’t dare name unless he likes to feel inferior to people.

younghyun is good looking, refined and polished from his big toe to the curl of his lashes, his lips tugging that sharp smirk that never fails to bend women in half. younghyun is good at academics, hates to study but still does it for the greater good, never a word out of place in his assignments. if he does something, he’s the type of person to adamantly complete it or would otherwise be taken by untainted animosity born from an extremely out of proportion pet peeve. he hates leaving things undone. it’s rather admirable.

dowoon believes that it’s almost an honor to be able to discern the ugly sides of perfect. if there’s something he knows about younghyun, it’s that he’s terribly impulsive. there’s no arguing that younghyun doesn’t get angry easily, that he wouldn’t hesitate to punch someone if the situation calls for hostility. he has a minimum of self-control, fortunately, but it all seems like a huge joke when dowoon actually saw younghyun relentlessly drive his fist in jaebum’s nose once because he had said that wonpil’s piano performance was shitty--and so much more that dowoon has tuned out because he knew then that jaebum would never be worth his time. and then dowoon is distinctly reminded that he should have been in younghyun’s position instead, as wonpil’s respective boyfriend. younghyun has simply been faster, he reasons.

but that’s what irked him the most; this outperforming and overshadowing dowoon in his position in every sense of the terms.

maybe, deep down, dowoon is afraid of what looks, sounds, and is better than him, lest wonpil’s interest flies away from his grasp. younghyun is definitely intimidating, imposing in the meager eyes of dowoon.

but wonpil would have chosen younghyun long before he’d met dowoon. they would have never wound up together if wonpil’s inclination had been originally set on younghyun. he’s excessively used to being in presence of younghyun to trigger new feelings.

and more importantly, what has infused a spark of distaste of younghyun in dowoon’s body is the way he’d repeatedly fight with wonpil. for obvious reasons, dowoon doesn’t derive any pleasure in watching his boyfriend talking back to a bristling younghyun whose temper seemed like it had been used as an ass-wipe. it’s just like that, a natural cycle that would never meet an end, like leaves that fall in winter before growing back into beautiful flowers in spring and wilting again by the end of the year. there’s always something wrong, always having to stir a problem awake like prodding at a bear’s ribs in its beauty sleep. it’s bound to come out roaring and destroying everything in its path by the time it’s too late to turn away in silence, just like how the storm from the fight between younghyun and wonpil would affect the way wonpil would greet dowoon the next day. depending on the caliber of their argument, wonpil could go as far as ignoring dowoon for the day and slamming doors in his face. sungjin and jae would also be victims of the grievous wave, each on the receiving end of the remainders of younghyun’s wrath that haven’t been able to see the light of the day.

it could be about wonpil forgetting about younghyun’s birthday, or younghyun pranking wonpil, or about a pair of socks, the color of sungjin’s curtains, or about their divergent answers on their exams. it can jump from the most important of mistakes to silly, almost ridiculous blame games they have going on.

jae and sungjin are all but accustomed to it, take to pulling out their phones and licking the front row of their teeth boredly as they wait for the outburst of younghyun’s imposing voice angrily lacing over wonpil’s dry one to die down, during the time which dowoon would agonizingly be gazing at wonpil, materializing his worry in the form of his bitten nails in the aftermath of the fight.

thank god those livid eyes devoid of any fondness have never been directed in his general direction.

“you okay dowoonie?” a soft, throaty voice rings into his left ear that has been pressed against wonpil’s face. the others have long gone in their respective tents to revitalize their energy imbued into the tireless chorus, and wonpil has dragged dowoon over a blanket on an edge of the hill overlooking the darkened ocean of seaweed green trees, soaking in the midnight sky stretching overhead.

“mhm,” he hums, zooming out of his thoughts and momentarily lost. when he receives no other answer, he looks down to find wonpil drifting in and out of slumber, eyelashes fluttering close against the rims of his eyes. dowoon smiles, brings a hand to swipe a stray strand that has fallen across wonpil’s brow. when he looks back at the sky, a lone star is peering back at him with a kind ardor. “if the constellation aligns,” he whispers demurely, shyly, tightens the hold on wonpil’s hand, “he will marry me in the future.”

sadly, dowoon doesn’t believe in cosmology.

\--

when things go way _too_ perfectly for his own standards, doubt starts to seethe in dowoon. in the middle of sophomore year, things are _too_ okay. his parents call sometimes, younghyun and wonpil’s arguing has lessen down to a mere hush on cold-bitten days, wonpil and him are still very much in love, and academics have never been easier.

things are never usually this calm in his life, or at least never this balanced. there was always one thing at worst that would ripple through the grounded harmony piecing his life together.

instead of being pacified, dowoon finds himself burdened with unreasonable qualms that were all out of proportion; and it’s not like he had the inclination to vocalize them or to act upon them. he has never needed to, after all, since there’s nothing wrong in the first place.

when he figures it out, he believes something has to be going on behind his back.

(little did dowoon know that it hasn’t even begun yet.)

\--

it’s on may vacation that something mind-changing doesn’t escape dowoon’s notice.

they’re all seated in sungjin’s car, headed eastwards to the beach, and as dowoon is thinly compressed between wonpil and the car door, his eyes fleet across younghyun’s for a staggering moment.

between packing and muting out sungjin’s whines of how late they are going to be if jae keeps weighing his suitcase on his back and dragging his feet like an invalid snail, dowoon has never had enough time to ponder on their disposition in the car. it has never really changed, and that’s probably what made it difficult for dowoon to become aware of their adjustment: sungjin drives, jae’s in the front because he’s the best at navigating (wonpil always gets them lost, and younghyun is sleepy), younghyun, wonpil and dowoon are in the back,  respectively aligned in order.

regardless of where they are, it’s only natural for dowoon and wonpil to find each other and sit where they can reach for their hands. but it’s only now that dowoon really takes into account that younghyun is always somewhere in the vicinity, never too remote from where wonpil stood. in this case, his side is pressed flush into wonpil’s, their bodies jostling together as the wheels of the car rolled on a rocky path, exchanging words like they’re not twisted and laced together in a more compromising position than how friends usually carried themselves.

the badgering itch bristling to life is nothing short of jealousy, dowoon knows it, and it’s ridiculous to even nurture revulsion towards a person he considers his friend, but he also knows for a fact that he’s not being unreasonable. it makes him wonder what nature defined the delicate history laid between younghyun and wonpil, what really makes them _them_ , what has transgressed between them to stir endless fights yet also warmth and an amiable bond at once.

and even if wonpil is bracing himself on dowoon’s thighs, younghyun’s hands are securely strapped around wonpil’s upper arm to steady him.

it’s annoying.

\--

it’s on one night over the beach house that his perspective on his relationship with wonpil takes a sharp, irrevocable turn.

whenever they’re out on trips where some sort of house maintenance is a necessity, sungjin is in charge of cooking them meals, jae is busied with setting the table, younghyun is the one who collects the dishes after lunch or dinner to hand them over to wonpil who’s pegged to washing them. that’s how it’s always worked between them, and dowoon hasn’t yet found a task that suited his expertise, not that he really had one in the spectrum of house-cleaning. for the moment, he settles with tidying up the place whenever he could and helping wonpil wash the dishes because seeing his boyfriend agonize over a pile of dirty dishes equally pained him.

dowoon wants to say that a perfect harmony is weaving between them all, but sadly, that’s not the case.

younghyun always forgets to empty the excesses in the trash before giving them to wonpil for wash. it occurs way too many times for it to escape dowoon’s attention, but also because he’s taken to be unearthly enticed by all the things done by younghyun.

then, wonpil would whine with the tone dowoon is used to hearing when driven in younghyun’s way, that familiar pitch that unveils how unhappy he is and ultimately wants to shake some sense into younghyun. afterwards, it’s a relief that younghyun always act accordingly to what was asked of him--but not without slipping in a witty remark or two. for the past two weeks, they’re fortunate enough that the tiny little flaws did not infringe into full-blown arguments that chased sungjin and jae away in their respective rooms along with their interest of even staying until the argument ends.

but then younghyun’s forgetfulness happens again, and again, and again, and at some point in the week, wonpil has lost both mind and patience to put up with what has turned out to be younghyun’s uncharacteristic laziness. the first days of their stay, he genuinely forgot to clean them, but the ones that follow, dowoon isn’t sure anymore whether or not it’s out of some sort of ill intention, just to test how far he can plague wonpil. but sungjin’s always there to kindly tug on younghyun’s sleeve but with a hard expression nonetheless, and motion to the plates with a twirl of his pointer finger, which would have younghyun sigh a relieved “aah, yes” before he goes hand them to wonpil.

some days, dowoon had watched with a curious glare as wonpil had taken an unyielding hold on younghyun’s shoulders before sungjin was about to make dinner, almost begging him to throw the remaining food on the plates before giving them to him for maintenance. younghyun had thrown his hands in the air in surrender and bore a promise that dowoon registered all too well and deep in his mind. he’s on wonpil’s side, after all.

but right on the day before their depart from the resort, younghyun forgets. and this time around, sungjin and jae were both unluckily rapt in a conversation about guitars that dowoon unwittingly nods along despite his lack of knowledge to remind younghyun. dowoon only notices until it was too late, and younghyun has already reached a waiting wonpil.

“hyung-” dowoon begins speaking, but the rims of the plates touched wonpil’s elbow perched above the sink. he turns swiftly, disbelievingly eyes the plates gathered in younghyun’s hands and frowns indignantly.

“younghyun, i told you to clean the damn plates,” he slightly tips his head back, aggravated. dowoon catches sungjin rolling his eyes and muttering a not so demure ‘here we go again’ under his breath, jae nodding along to it like words of prayer cutting through the tension.

“yeah, yeah, i know. i forgot. it’s not the end of the world, is it?”

“right, treat me like a child, it’s going to solve every problems in this world, is it not?”

“i forgot! jesus christ, i really forgot.”

“i asked you to, though. and you promised me!” wonpil shifts, the dip between his brows deepening a fraction.

“what are you whining about again, i can do it right now.”

“no but you _always_ forget!” wonpil croaks, elevating his tone until it matches with younghyun’s naturally strong voice. dowoon has to admit that wonpil is being stubborn, but he could see where his exasperation is coming from.

“hey chill dude, why are you whining over this?”

“i’m not whining younghyun. you just _always_ leave the food left on the plate to soak up all the goddamn water and i always have to touch the mushy rice to clean them! it’s disgusting!”

“and you always whine over nothing at all! get over it pil, it’s not the end of the world. or learn to clean them yourself, jesus.”

“stop it younghyun, if you actually remembered the _one_ thing you have to do, i wouldn’t have to deal with your shitty lack of temper management.”

“the _one_ thing i have to do? are you saying i only contribute to plate gathering? you’re the one _only_ washing the dishes.”

“but that’s what we agreed to, you idiot. and i call bullshit on that. i help cook sometimes. right sungjin hyung?” both younghyun and dowoon turn their gaze at sungjin who’s staring down at his phone, holding a hand up as if it would help him turn invisible.

“count me out.”

“huh, yeah right. you know how to stir a pot. what a genius,” younghyun mocks, flails the plates on the countertop as gently as one could flail fragile plates.

“that’s beside the point. do i really i have to yell it until you turn deaf? i keep repeating it to you and it’s been years of this! i’m sick of it, and i’m sick of having to put up with mister kang jackass who can’t keep his snarky and witty self to himself. clean the plates, dammit!”

“god, sometimes i really do wish i were deaf to stop hearing your whiny ass whine about something like this.”

“stop it!” wonpil keels.

“okay, kim wonpil, why are you getting angry over this!” younghyun half yells, grips the countertop with a fierce grasp. dowoon bites his lips anxiously, watches wonpil’s face distort into clear distaste at the sudden rise of tone.

“i am not angry. i’m frustrated over the fact that i need to remind you ass times a day just to clean goddamn plates!”

“i’m not angry, i’m frustrated,” younghyun imitates wonpil in his best attempt at a girl-pitched voice, and dowoon is about to stand up to separate them and put a decisive end to their senseless fight that was overstepping the rational marges. jae’s hand comes to wrap around his wrist, and when dowoon turns his head to regard him, he’s shaking his head as if urging him to resign, let things unfold like they should, even if it has gone absolutely chaotic. “learn anger management, it would do you some good.” younghyun says, triggering the wrinkling of wonpil’s eyes in a narrowed awareness.

“bit rich coming from you.”

“you said something?”

“i said learn to shut your mouth. i swear it’d make the world a better place.”

“yada yada yada.”

“you always do that! christ, you’re such a child!”

“you’re such a child,” younghyun repeats, wearing a constipated face as if to mimic how wonpil looked in his head.

“fuck this shit, i’m not washing the dishes anymore. you do it, younghyun, i’m out."

“both of you, stop,” sungjin cuts in, gets up to stand between the two before spreading a hand on younghyun’s chest to create some comfortable distance between them. “get away younghyun. you’re not helping.” dowoon watches in amazement as younghyun complies without dispute, wonpil’s eyes trailing after his retreating figure to wordlessly sit on the couch. dowoon sees him card a hand through his bangs and huff out a tired sigh. sungjin takes to emptying the plates himself and hands them to wonpil who wears a strangled smile on his face. “and you,” sungjin says. “get to work.”

they stay in silence, dowoon vacating his seat to stand beside an irate and virtually fuming wonpil angrily washing the dishes like they were made of concrete (or younghyun’s face). he swings his body and occasionally bumps his hips with wonpil, hums an unfamiliar tune under his breath. he’s so bad with words he doesn’t dare speak up the meekest of sounds lest he disrupts something in wonpil’s unpredictable flow of thoughts and ultimately earning himself an earful from the pent up wrath that has built up upon his fight with younghyun. jae’s on the other side of wonpil, doing his best to lighten up the mood by reading him his tweets. it pulls a demure smile on dowoon’s face but it dims down immediately, seeing that wonpil’s condition has overall not been improved in the least.

on the other side, younghyun is skipping through the channels on the tv with a thoughtful but absent gaze looking ahead and past the screen, not really watching it, intently ignoring sungjin who was trying to lecture him about something, like whatever was being said mattered very little to him.

 

there’s a passion somewhere between them, a fire burning, so strong it would take decades to put it out. dowoon has seen it in wonpil’s eyes, the anger bursting out in bristles, as well as nothing short of longing, an apology glistening in the sheer of his eyes, anger fused with searing endearment.

in the way younghyun’s lips have stuttered out the words, dowoon has seen a filter, disguising them to adorn a false sense of hostility. there’s a layer of compassionate ardor underlying somewhere, something that only wonpil could distinguish. that was probably why they never ceased their arguing. because without it, they don’t know how to show amity to each other.

and if there was something missing between dowoon and wonpil, it was exactly that. if there was something that differed dowoon from younghyun, it was that, too.  


 

it’s during bedtime that dowoon brings himself to vocalize his thoughts.

wonpil’s back is facing him, and he feels as though the argument is all about him. he never had the misfortune to fight with wonpil--they never do. not to the point of ever being angry at each other, at least. whenever a hair of a problem emerges between them, either one of them resorts to burying it far and away from them, never to be brought up again. at the end of the day, they always sleep facing each other, or at least, if wonpil’s back was turned, it was either because of their spooning position or they were having one of those very passionate nights where wonpil’s naked back is displayed to him.

“hey hyung. it’s okay. i know he promised.” wonpil turns on his side to face him, eyes casted down. he sighs solemnly.

“i know, it’s just- i told him, y’know? i’m tired of his always being angry, though.”

“it’s not a big deal, is it? you’ll forget about this sooner or later.”

“yeah i know… it’s just annoying sometimes… i clearly told him, haven’t i? what does he not understand?”

“i know you did, and he knows too. but, it’s just dishes, right? it’s nothing to be angry over, don’t you think? let’s just forget this hyung. i’m sure younghyun hyung will also get over it by tomorrow.”

“you’re right,” he concedes, wriggling his way closer to dowoon. “i’ll talk to him tomorrow.” wonpil utters decidedly, firm and convinced.

“talk to him?”

“yeah. i think it needs to be solved.”

“alright. if you think it’s the best solution,” he says, sounding unsure but supportive nonetheless. dowoon’s chest lightens up exponentially at the sight of wonpil looking at him with a smiling face.

“thank you dowoon.”

“you can rely on me anytime you want, hyung.” dowoon tips his head to place a light kiss on wonpil’s lips.

“thank you thank you thank you."

it only hits dowoon later that wonpil has never brought it upon himself to mend any of their arguments, no matter how meager. dowoon either, has never taken the initiative.

\--

a few months later, dowoon finds himself standing under the smoldering sun, silently watching the waves roll over the surface of the sea to crash ashore. the salty wind whistles past his ears, and between every curl, dowoon can make out soft and distant billows of laughter. soon, wonpil beckons him over to their picnic spot, motions for him to come help wrap up leftovers and fold the blanket.

the location is paved by rocks in varying sizes, and they had to climb their way to where sungjin has parked his car. in the front, jae and sungjin are each holding a strap of the huge bag which stored their plates and tupperware boxes, and from here, dowoon knows they’re hung up in another conversation involving which guitar sungjin should try next.

wonpil’s frail fingers weighed between his, and when dowoon looks up, he’s talking to him with a vivid gaze, lips billowed out into a broad, happy smile. younghyun’s on the other side of wonpil, pleasantly laughing along to whatever was being said.

suddenly, wonpil trips and tightens his grip around dowoon, his face crumbling into momentary shock until both dowoon and younghyun reach out to steady his stance. dowoon slowly lifts his eyes to look at younghyun’s smiling face through his bangs.

“watch it there, pillie. you don’t want to smash your nose into the ground like last time, do you?”

“last time was a wreck,” wonpil laughs, wrapping his hand around dowoon’s elbow to hold him closer. it catches both jae’s and sungjin’s attention, who halt in their exchange to cast a curious glance at wonpil.

“last time? when did wonpil ever kiss the ground and i wasn’t there to see it?” jae blinks, idly stands before them.

“oh, it’s uh…” younghyun begins, but doesn’t finish, instead opting for a not so subtle glimpse at wonpil. “you guys weren’t here.”

“huh, who would’ve thought.” sungjin rolls his eyes before tugging the bag strap, geturing for jae to follow along.

even if dowoon hasn’t particularly asked, wonpil starts to unveil that time when he and younghyun had gone for a visit at gyeongju, and had witnessed an eventual catastrophe in the form of wonpil stumbling over a pebble, resulting in a knee and temple injury.

“that’s harsh,” dowoon comments offhandedly, not expecting his statement to go noticed by anyone.

“it was funny though,” he gets a reply from younghyun anyways.

he settles for a light nod in younghyun’s way and a comely smile for good measure, shifts his thoughtful gaze ahead of him to carefully regard jae’s untied laces like they were the most interesting thing on earth. at least, the anticipation of jae’s fall was amusing enough to distract him from the lingering fact that younghyun and wonpil ever went somewhere by themselves in the past.

\--

“hyung?”

“yeah?”

“i think i wanna be a musician.”

“wow, dowoon! really?”

“yeah.”

“that’s really cool! i think you’d do well.”

“you approve?”

“of course, dowoonie.”

in the bigger part of him, dowoon is thankful that he has such a supportive boyfriend who’s always pushing him into the spotlight he supposedly deserved. he has been hoping that becoming someone cool and whom people yearned for would make wonpil’s heart swell with pride even more so than it already was. and perhaps he was right.

but somewhere in the depths of his being, dowoon desires to see a side of wonpil that would collide against his, maybe to saturate this puppy love a little. dowoon himself wants to live with passion. maybe seethe with anger here and there, have a reason to console wonpil from himself in the aftermath.

he shakes his head, half-convinced he just seemed like younghyun in his mind for a second.

\--

dowoon doesn’t recall how it happened; it’s slow and grinding extra hard on his nerves, but not any less poignant.

at some point, dowoon gets comfortable enough to sit away from wonpil, does it at times because sungjin and jae were great discussing partners who like playing the same games as he does. on another note, jae has mentioned an interest about starting a band, and dowoon has gotten infinitely more involved in negotiating matters with him.

but it is exactly for this reason that he couldn’t get that glass of water for wonpil in time.

he has noticed it before, the couple remaining drops in wonpil’s glass where water has once been. to make it worse, wonpil has been complaining about how salty his fried rice was, and dowoon has sent inquisitive glances his way a couple time to make sure his cup was nice and filled.

“i’m thirsty,” wonpil pouts and laments over his empty glass of water. just as dowoon is instinctively stirring in his seat, already beginning to reach out for wonpil’s cup, younghyun, quicker and closer, offers his glass in place.

“here, have mine.”

“thanks.”

dowoon decides he’s a little too close.

 

\--

on one day, when dowoon enters senior year and wonpil in junior year, dowoon comes home from a meeting with his new band members from music class to find an unfamiliar pair of shoes lining next to wonpil’s favorite pair. he frowns because he knows they belong to younghyun.

brewing reluctance and perhaps the smallest tinge of fear, he still enters the apartment despite himself. he stands idly before the living room, seeing wonpil and younghyun on each end of the couch, knees turned the other way in a way that told dowoon they didn’t want to have anything to do with the other. he’s surprised to also spot jae behind his electric drum set, wearing a cramped face that melted into nothing short of thankful relief upon hearing dowoon’s arrival. judging by the looks on each of his friends’ face, it seems as though wonpil and younghyun have wound up in another ridiculous argument.

“dowoon!” jae exclaims after a stifling moment, getting on his feet to pull dowoon into an awkward side hug. dowoon could only frown at his feet.

“you don’t put shoes in our house, hyung,” he says, but jae gives him a strangled look that indicates that there are worst matters at hand to worry about right now besides jae dirtying their floor. he blinks over at dowoon, as if to gesture him to get the hell out of here but dowoon reminds him with another blink that it’s his home. before anyone does anything, younghyun wordlessly gets up from the couch and heads straight to slip in his shoes, breezes past the door like he has never been there. the only impression of his ever being here is the blood-curdling sound of wonpil’s teeth grinding together.

“welp,” jae breathes, clapping his hands together. wonpil doesn’t do so much as budge. “thanks for having me over pil, dowoon, but i gotta go.”

as jae’s about to close the door, he makes a sign as though telling dowoon that he’s going to call, also mouthing the words ‘i’m gonna call you later’ to confirm himself.

wonpil stays silent, lifelessly fiddles with the end of his shirt.

 

later, jae calls him to utter a string of complaints for a few minutes, about how everything started off just fine them having a glass of lemonade and all that cool stuff before an argument starts to brew between jae and wonpil. however, after a few minutes, it ends up fueling between wonpil and younghyun instead. it doesn’t help that they were originally discussing on the topic of ducks until it wraps up around the fact that younghyun never pays enough attention to wonpil.

“why exactly are you telling me this?” dowoon asks, leaning against the railing of the balcony, nursing a can of coke in his hand. on the other side of the glass door, dowoon watches worriedly as wonpil reads a book on their bed, a dry, flat expression sitting on his face.

“yo, dowoon, you would’ve never guessed how jealous brian sounded over this.”

“why in the world would he be jealous?”

“take a hint genius! he’s ignoring wonpil because he’s an envious bitch. why else do you think i was there with them today? i have this huge ass project to do but pil won’t stop biting my ass to come and hang out.”

“he’s not ignoring pil.” dowoon rolls his eyes in exasperation. “if anything, he’s the one sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“pil’s the one making up for it.”

“making up for what?”

“if wonpil doesn’t call or text brian, they wouldn’t have lasted so much longer.”

“does he call him often?”

“i don’t know. but he must be putting a hell lot of effort to sustain whatever is worth sustaining between them.”

“right.” dowoon meets wonpil’s expectant gaze through the glass door and sighs. “welp, gotta run. see you around jae.”

“yup. see ya.”

  


and a little later, they talk about it in the merigold glow of the lamp on their bedside table, dowoon stroking wonpil’s naked arm with a featherlight touch.

“why do you fight so often with him?’

“it goes all the way to kindergarten. we’ve never really gotten along.”

“how can you both be friends for so long then?”

“old, deep-seated habits die hard. just like how smokers would tell you smoking isn’t actually bad for your health, you know?”

“nice try trying to convince me.” dowoon laughs, and between his arms, wonpil does too. he’s warm and soft under the rough pads of dowoon’s hands, stirring and fitting just right. “what exactly is your point though?”

“i know that it’s always best to cut out toxic relationships in your life. but i don’t believe younghyun is worth only a toxic friend to me. imagine you have this mud statue right, and you want to make it perfect, but you end up making it so ugly that you can’t even stand the sight of it anymore. but you’ve been working on it for years on end and you’ve grown a strange attachment to it that if it’s not there anymore, it feels weird. it’s like you never want to give up until it’s perfect.”

“but younghyun has been deteriorating your mood for years on end. what exactly have you worked on so to feel this strange attachment to him?”

“working on our differences. setting compromises that end up being futile.”

“what’s the point then, if it doesn’t work?”

“we live in that kind of passion, y’know? we can’t function without it. when we argue, it’s like we both know something others don’t.”

“but for this long?”

“he just stuck by, y’know? like pollen to your black sweater.” dowoon laughs a little, scraping at wonpil’s shoulder with his short nails.

“opposites attract, right?” dowoon rather felt than saw wonpil lift himself up from his embrace into a sitting position, a hand firmly planted on his chest and peering intently into the blackness of his eyes. “what?” he asks, bewildered.

“you’re not my opposite,” wonpil smiles, blinks. it makes dowoon’s heart beat a pace faster.

“i’m not your opposite,” he repeats emptily, tastes the words on his lips.

 

it’s bittersweet, but dowoon has no idea.

\--

the year is pretty dull, and dowoon is scared that the time lost with wonpil in favor of band practice will strain their relationship. it doesn’t, and wonpil still loves him the same.

most of their time spent is in the bed between tight schedules and classes and after dinner, in the brief hours of the morning cuddling or kissing or other things. love making has been reduced to fast fucking, hardly emotional and only aiming to relieve some sort of pent up stress from their system, driving their last shred of energy in something that only physically binds them together. conversations were short and concise and almost unsubstantial. dowoon’s holding on to this relationship like he’s clawing at air for support; he couldn’t deny that wonpil was slipping away.

it passes by so quickly, dowoon finding himself eating scraps of dinner between wonpil and younghyun, trying to get wonpil to talk to him like he does to younghyun. wonpil isn’t shallow by any means, but he has a tendency of behavioral shift in accordance to who he was talking to. he makes it clear that his speech and intonation with younghyun wasn’t the same as when he spoke to dowoon. and as they said, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, is it not? dowoon kind of longed for the passion wonpil showed when addressing to younghyun, regardless of where they stood on the scale of friendship.

but there is no way wonpil is neglecting him. it shows in the way he takes time to cook meals for dowoon sometimes, even if he’s so bad at it that it made him cry once. he would take it upon himself to hold dowoon’s hand across the table and ask about his day, about how he’s feeling and tell him that he loves him. at night, he’d stroke dowoon’s hair and sing a smile onto his face even if he’s the one who ends up falling asleep first.

it’s a little bittersweet, the changes that are occurring around him, and dowoon is growing into an older person, each day becoming more and more pragmatic and less like the old, love-stricken person he has been looking at in the mirror for years on end.

maybe the same factors apply to wonpil.

\--

when the odds are against him, he finds himself in awkward situations. he’s never been one on one with younghyun before, but the first time, he’s obviously bothered. dowoon just finished band practice at 8pm and coincidentally met younghyun at the bus stop. he doesn’t mind spending time with him, but he just wouldn’t actively call for his company.

“going home?” younghyun says, voice raw with exhaustion.

“mhm.” _where else._

“had class?”

“band practice.”

“oh, really? wonpil never told me you were in a band.”

“i guess not.”

they sit in silence, and when the bus comes, dowoon doesn’t board it. younghyun doesn’t question him.

\--

another time, when sungjin and jae came back for an abrupt visit, they have hoisted themselves back up in the mountains where they have been a long while ago. this time, alcohol is heavily involved.

dowoon is too drunk to sit up properly by the fire and decides to take a breather from the stifling atmosphere, peeling wonpil away from his lap and meticulously lays him down on the ground, careful not to wake him up with his clumsy ministrations.

in the way dowoon has isolated himself to dawdle in the lonesome ambience beneath the black sky overcast and bathe in the pale wind, it must have been pretty obvious that his body language hadn’t called for any attention or company. yet, in what feels like two minutes, he finds younghyun seated next to him, head craned upwards and hooded eyes peering at the myriad of stars bristling in between the shaded clouds.

the air hovering above their heads is not awkward or thick with tension, just calm and perhaps a little bit strained on dowoon’s end; he feels like a pebble next to a mountain while being anywhere near younghyun. without even having to check, he knows that younghyun is looking at him, tracing his eyes on his neck and every sliver of skin that wasn’t covered by his clothes.

“what?” dowoon asks impatiently.

“you guys ever done it?”

“done what?”

“you know. have wonpil and you ever had sex?”

“of course.” he rolls his eyes. “if we haven’t even touched for the past three years, wouldn’t it be a little weird?”

“happens, sometimes.” there is a swollen pause, whereupon dowoon has taken to fling his head back and close his eyes for a relaxing moment that dragged on for what might as well have been years. that is, until younghyun’s deep, lulling voice slices through the silence like a heated knife through butter in a single, acute word: “active?”

“hm?”

“are you guys active?”

“moderately, i guess,” dowoon responds, almost instinctively.

“you’re clean of hickeys,” his reply comes out laced between smidgens of laughter.

“huh, figures,” he scoffs, but recomposes himself when younghyun shoots him an apathetic glare. “we’re not really into that.”

“strange. wonpil usually gives a lot of marks,” younghyun says as though it was the most natural information that has ever evaded his lips. dowoon knots his brows together and turns his head to stare at younghyun, heavy with judgement and barren of any decency.

“and how do you know?”

younghyun gives him a mere shrug in response, doesn’t spare him a glance and quirks his lips into a smug smile as he answers: “his previous boyfriends.”

dowoon leans back with a tired sigh and places his gaze on the scenery before him, feeling a little lightheaded from the alcohol. now he’d like to pass out next to wonpil and wait until the night wanes into day and take away with it these shards of memory that would pierce into him even when a hangover would be drilling in his head when the sun is high up in the sky on the next day.

“you know so much about him, don’t you,” dowoon has said, convinced that younghyun has caught the words, if the fractional stiffening of his shoulders is any indication.

\--

wonpil has been excessively tired these past few days. it was written all over his face and in the manner he would drag himself out of their apartment each day, or in the mornings when dowoon has to insist twice as hard that he wakes up before he’s going to be late for class. wonpil is a naturally drowsy person, but dowoon has always been a great deal more than him yet still finds himself pegged to shaking wonpil awake for the fifth time that morning.

so today, he sits on the kitchen table alone, happily eating his cereals as he was reminded that last night, he’d almost had to demand wonpil stay home today and recollect himself. it has functioned pretty well, because it’s 10 and wonpil isn’t up yet.

just as that thought filed through his head, wonpil walks in the kitchen, clean and dressed up, even adorned with the typical black choker around his neck. dowoon stares at it with strong inquisition.

“hi dowoonie,” he says, bends down to kiss him on the lips, which dowoon receives wholeheartedly, trying not to feel the sinking sensation gurgling in his stomach. “i’ll be out today.”

“where?” he asks, because wonpil never goes out unless he has warned him at least a day beforehand. dowoon isn’t possessive by any stretch of the imagination, but he believes that when a convention in their relationship has been so abruptly broken, there must be something going against the current. but he’s also genuinely curious as to where wonpil could be headed in that outfit that surely isn’t fit for any educational institution, much less his college.

“to younghyun’s,” comes wonpil simple reply.

dowoon says nothing in retaliation, slowly chews the remaining crumbs of cereal in his mouth and looks straight ahead of him, where wonpil sat, playing with dowoon’s fingers and tracing his socked feet along the curve of dowoon’s calf.

it’s clawing at dowoon’s throat like sandpaper, grinding and unrelenting; it’s threatening to make itself known in very ugly ways. and after clamping his spoon harder than what he remembers, he decides to speak his mind in a controlled voice, but with a sharp edge nonetheless.

“you’re always with him.” wonpil looks surprised at that, eyes going a fragment wider and lips slightly parting as if straining very badly for a correct answer, as if there is one. he doesn’t respond immediately, takes to fiddle with his phone instead. dowoon keeps glaring at his choker as he supplies his argument: “just yesterday you told me he was an asshole, remember?”

“you know i didn’t really mean it. i… always say that about younghyun, don’t it? god i’m such a jackass.”

 _does it change the fact that you probably spend more time with him than with me?_ dowoon struggles not to blurt.

“but you’re always with him.” he opts for an alternative angle instead.

“i’m not _always_ with him,” wonpil laughs, eyes filling with mirth as though what dowoon said is a joke. “besides, he’s my best friend.” he shrugs.

“define best friend.”

“sorry, did you say something?”

“i said alright hyung.”

\--

it’s the beginning of dowoon’s junior year. wonpil is looking for a job. their life is stale, unimproving.

“i’ve got a bad feeling.” dowoon says to mark hours after band practice has come to an end.

“wonpil?” mark questions. dowoon nods slowly, dragging his gaze along his background picture. _wonpil is beautiful in the sunlight_. he can feel the condescending pity dripping from mark’s stare on him.

“i’m sure it’s nothing,” mark says, halfheartedly patting him on the back like the world isn’t coming to an end. in some small metaphorical way, it is.

“we’re not the same anymore.”

“things change, dowoon-ah.”

“not for the better.”

“have you noticed anything about him that changed?”

“he in himself hasn’t changed. our dynamics did, i can tell.”

“why don’t you talk to him?”

“it’s going to worsen everything.”

“you’re an idiot.”

“gee, thanks.”

“how is he going to know if you don’t tell him?”

“no use.”

“it’s not _that_ bad, y’know? it might just be in your head.”

“whatever.”

\--

when wonpil suggested they go back to that place they went when wonpil graduated high school, where dowoon has lost his virginity and has surrendered his soul to wonpil, dowoon doesn’t hesitate. (“just the two of us,” wonpil has said. “just the two of us?” “yeah.”)

for a while, it’s like nothing existed; not tuan the asshat or jae or sungjin. not younghyun and his arguments with wonpil. it’s just wonpil and dowoon and their memories, tracing the footsteps that have lingered, the path they have paved years back. it’s reminiscent of the first and only time dowoon has ever fallen in love, first with wonpil’s soft black hair waning in the sunlight and his pale smile nestling in the summer breeze, and then with his laughter and his silly games of burying dowoon’s feet in the sand.

there’s so little between them yet so much. the simplest, smallest words can make dowoon feel so much. wonpil is beautiful, and dowoon never stops staring, never wants to let go of his hands.

“someday, i’ll take you around the world.”

“i’d love that, dowoonie,” wonpil smiles, but something is missing behind those words.

they walk around the beach to bask in the peachy sunset, they plant their feet in the wet sand and let the waves ride the length of their calves, wonpil carries him on his back as he swims against the current of the sea. dowoon tries, tries to give wonpil a reason to stay with him, even when he’s not very far away from him, tries to prove that he’s worth the attempt at making everything okay again.

but then he’s distinctly reminded that perhaps to wonpil, there has never been anything wrong to begin with.

\--

it’s not the same. it’s really not the same anymore once they’re back home.

it’s only been a week since they came back from the beach and wonpil hasn’t stopped staring at the blank screen of his phone. he’s activated plane mode and disabled wifi. he’s not typing, hardly unlocks it unless he gets a call. he just stares, drained of life and almost pale.

one night as dowoon is quietly watching tv, wonpil comes home unearthly late and emptily sits on the couch, not engaging in skinship. he’s biting his nails, unfocused gaze blankly eyeing the black screen of his phone. his pose is awkward and visibly appallingly uncomfortable for his bones. at this point, dowoon could only cast his eyes upwards in a desperate prayer of what to do.

as the animate images filed along on the screen, pouring lights down on wonpil’s dull features, there are only a few questions swerving about in dowoon’s mind, but he feels like he’s crumbling under their crushing weight. why is he acting this way? for what reason? is it about dowoon? or has younghyun somehow gotten tangled between wonpil’s legs yet again? and what can dowoon do about it, in the end?

by contrast to the last few years, there has been a significant change between them that hadn’t been clearly distinguishable until the end differed too much from the beginning. he’s almost too afraid to call it the end, because even if he still bears an insufferable amount of love for wonpil, and even if it ultimately isn’t over for him yet, it all feels like they’re trying to wrap things up in the poorest way possible. like getting it over with as early as possible, and soon, their burying their problems as far away from them as possible might become shoving themselves out of each other’s lives as quick as they could.

for a while now, it feels like they’ve been traipsing on a thin line, and if one of them falls, it’s game over for both of them. it’s a hell of a scary game, because seeing one of them fall and ellipse into darkness that seems to stretch on forever is more than a daunting sight to behold. it’s losing half of his life in a single blink of an eye. those unfolding days before wonpil have been hardly recognizable. it’s not falling that scared him more, but to see his lover disappear, to see the lone reflection of himself in the eyes of the one he’s ever loved most, where warmth and affection used to be. now, there seems to only be himself.

dowoon frowns and taps his fingers on his thigh, wants to reach out, flicks his gaze between the tv and wonpil who’s indifferent to the swelling silence disconnecting them.

dowoon sighs, shifts a little.

“wonpil hyung,” he tries in a small voice, but wonpil doesn’t move a hair, only raises his eyebrows to indicate that at least half of his attention is somewhat present, albeit very thinly. “please look at me.”

slowly but surely, he turns to regard dowoon, but instead of meeting his eyes, he looks down at their hands, barely grazing, cold cold cold. his eyes are filled with tears, glistening along the rims. it’s been a long while since dowoon has seen him cry, or on the verge to, and it comes off a little surprising to say the least.

“please tell me what’s wrong,” he says. he didn’t intend the double meaning; simultaneously asking wonpil what’s wrong at the moment and what’s gone awry between them in general.

“dowoon,” wonpil chokes back, a single tear finally managing to escape. he crawls over to him and hugs his waist. dowoon instinctively grabs him and pulls wonpil against him.

“what’s wrong hyung?”

“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.” wonpil lifts himself up, face red and eyes raw with unshed tears.

“about what?” his heart is beating fast in anticipation of something he has difficulty predicting. he’s growing colder, still brings his finger to push a strand of hair behind wonpil’s ear. acting unfazed despite the obvious.

“listen to me carefully, alright? please listen to me.” dowoon nods, positioning himself so they can look into each other’s eyes. for some reasons, he doesn’t want to be here anymore. “no i can’t do this.” wonpil crumbles, and relief washes through dowoon, though a very ugly form of dread seeps into his cold veins very soon after.

“say it hyung, please,” dowoon whispers, even if he hopes for the opposite.

“dowoon.” a pause, a chill running down his spine. a heartbeat, then two, then— “i don’t think i love you the same anymore.”

his heart stops, his breath catches. the insipid buzz dulling out his hearing is all that he can distinguish among the deafening words sounding from wonpil’s lips.

 

he’s cold.

 

wonpil explains. a few words elude him, but he has a vague knowledge of whatever is going on. what line has been drawn, what magnetic force is urging him to hold on to wonpil but pushing him away the closer he wants to get.

he’d known it, somewhere in his heart, but the pain isn’t any less cutting.

dowoon falls into an interminable silence, trying not to scream.

“fallen out of love?” dowoon asks, voice trembling, not meeting wonpil’s eyes. the words taste foul on his lips. he’s staring in the void, at the black screen of the tv—when has he turned it off? all he hears is static, all he feels is the seething sting spreading down to tug sharply at his stomach.

“i don’t know…” wonpil furiously wipes at his eyes, voice raw from tear-shedding.

where does he go now? what does he do now? who does he love now? it’s always been wonpil, his home, his lover, his everything.

“i’ll just… go pack my bags.” he gets up in a lack of anything else to do. he frowns at his feet as he walks over to their bedroom, pulls out a bag that might have been wonpil’s. there’s distinct anger sparking in his head, and dowoon still stares at his feet as he ground his teeth together. the abruptness and confusion is almost too overwhelming, nauseating. for now, it feels unreal, like a dream.

“wait- dowoon.”

“it’s okay hyung. i’ll go to mark’s.”

“no- you can, you can stay.” but words always pull his ankles back down to earth. a stinging slap of reality check. it’s really over, although it feels as though dowoon will still walk through this same door the day after to greet wonpil after a tiring day of band practice.

“and what? sleep with you when you don’t love me anymore? give me a break.”

“it’s not like that dowoon.”

“then what is it like?” he looks up from his bag. dowoon never gets angry, and even though he didn’t raise his tone, shreds of pent up anger still find themselves folded in his voice. “it’s exactly how it is.” he says and hoists up his barely filled up bag and breezes past wonpil to exit the apartment.

his heart is beating fast, his ears are burning, he’s nervously clenching his hands. finally, he got to properly fight with wonpil, and the feelings are there, burning a hole in his chest—anger, longing, love, frustration. but it’s bittersweet how it would be the last argument they’ll ever confront. at least as lovers.

\--

( _“dowoon?”_

_“hi mark hyung. can you let me in for the night?”_

_“alright.” mark steps aside to let dowoon in._

_still in the clothes he’d worn when wonpil has broken up with him, which hasn’t even been half an hour since dowoon has last heard his voice, he lays awake in the darkness, searing eyeballs staring straight at the ceiling._

_“did something happen?” he hears mark whisper through the stillness._

_“yeah.”_

_“oh, well-“_

_“he broke up with me.”_

_“oh.” mark is stifling a futile apology beneath his tongue, dowoon can tell. condescending pity, that’s all that it is. “it’s okay dowoon-ah. you’ll meet someone new.”_

_it’s not wonpil._

_it’s never going to be wonpil again._

_meeting someone new isn’t more than three years of relationship with wonpil. it doesn’t amount to the same, never will._

_someone new isn’t wonpil._

_“fuck off hyung.”)_

\--

 **kim wonpil** :  
dowoon, i’m sorry  
please understand

 **dowoon** :  
ur not sorry

 **kim wonpil** :  
i am… i just feel like you don’t deserve this, you know?

 **dowoon** :  
i dont think i do lol

 **kim wonpil** :  
please, move on, okay? don’t dwell on this too much…

 **dowoon** :  
u say it like i have a choice  
its ridiculous

 **kim wonpil:  
** i don’t mean to be, not with you  
love just dies, sometimes… and i’m sorry it did. if i had a choice…

 **dowoon** :  
ur just tryna validate urself

 **kim wonpil** :  
dowoon…

 **dowoon** :  
whtv hyung, who cares now anyways  
its fkin over and u know it, dont act like u still care

 **kim wonpil** :  
but i still do

 **dowoon** :  
rofl i wanna gag myself with a knife

 **kim wonpil** :  
…  
i never cheated, you know

 **dowoon** :  
i never asked

 **kim wonpil** :  
can you please be amiable for a minute?

 **dowoon** :  
ive been just that for the whole 4 yrs w u  
can we talk for real for once?  
im tired of ur on and off drama w younghyun hyung  
i knew i was done for anyways, but look at me being ‘amiable’ w u thru the whole thing 

 **kim wonpil** :  
if you had something to say about it, why didn’t you any sooner?  
you could have just said something and i would have understood  
and nothing happened with younghyun 

 **dowoon** :  
or if u were decent enough, ud know before i even got the chance to open my mouth  
and it doesnt matter if anything happened w younghyun hyung  
im tired of this, leave me alone 

 **kim wonpil** :  
are you really gonna walk away from this like this?  
sigh

\--

when love wears out, it leaves two people that have once been tangled like thorns around each other prone to despairing confusion. where there has once been comfort and warm familiarity, there is now a foreign sense of renewal, a sudden frustration of starting over when one was used to another specific one, had been for the longest time. the distress of building something new over something old and beautiful that you don’t want to tarnish, that you don’t want to forget. surely you will have to, although dreadfully.

the mud statue wonpil has told him about years ago, if that’s younghyun to him, then it’s wonpil to dowoon. no matter how ugly it gets, how difficult would it be to let go of something that one has been laboriously working on for years? to see it drift away from between your fingers when the sight of it, no matter how sore and dull it has become, avails to the familiarity of home?

regardless, it has been another four years, and a feeble wedding invitation letter weighs in dowoon’s hands. on the washed out paper, kim wonpil’s name is meticulously written on it, but nothing else gave way to whoever is the enthroned person who will be wedded to him. it hadn’t been sent by wonpil, and all dowoon has been is curious. nothing else.

the feeling is most similar to having someone firmly press a hot clothing iron on his heart, but dowoon still goes anyways, for the whole mockery of his pathetic self. there’s a meek consolation next to himself in the form of his girlfriend of six months, and perhaps, dowoon decided she is the one fit for him.

for the four years that have entailed after wonpil has ended their relationship, things have never been the same between him and his partners. a wavering, unsure love. high expectations. not fear, but disgust; with himself, with anyone that isn’t wonpil. his life has been rocky, rough on the edges, but he’s moved on, accepted the facts as they are to be accepted. when you can’t change the intangible, every endeavor is a waste of your energy. move forward. don’t look back on the past.

that is why attending this wedding is similar to having someone firmly press a hot clothing iron on his heart, he repeats to himself for the second time that morning. dowoon is walking on his past on steady yet frightful feet; things in themselves aren’t any different than they have been before, like how wonpil hasn’t changed a bit save for his now shimmering auburn hair. but when seen from a different perspective than his young, naive self, everything seems smaller than what he remembers. especially that glimmer of smile belonging to none other than his past lover, tucked between the gaps left by the crowd, and dowoon knows it because he’ll be able to recognize it anywhere. it’s smaller now in comparison, perhaps because they’ve both grown out of juvenile love, perhaps because in this viewpoint where that fond smile isn’t directed to him, it doesn’t seem as big as it used to anymore.

sunmi tugs at his pants, offering a loose smile. dowoon halfheartedly smiles back.

“so, who’s this?” she asks, nodding to the groom.

“a friend of mine,” dowoon answers, turns away in a gesture to help her know he didn’t want any more questions.

his mind is wandering, zooming in and out of his wonpil-filled memories, lets the thoughts file in and out, lets sunmi whisper about how handsome the other groom looks. dowoon lowers his gaze, suddenly doesn’t want to know more.

when the vows are spoken, dowoon knows, and despite having known for a long time, the sinking feeling is still there.

he discovers, after all this time, that younghyun is the reason why wonpil left all those years ago.

he takes a shuddering breath, mindlessly drums his fingers on the edge of the table when wonpil speaks his vow, looks up the blue sky like he’s cursing at it for never answering his prayers when it’s younghyun’s turn.

he never got to speak to wonpil again, as much as he’s wanted to, and drags sunmi out with him before wonpil even has the time to spot him.

perhaps, the familiarity between them still holds on only one end.

 

and perhaps it is best this way.

  
  
  


-end


End file.
